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DIVINE    IMMANENCE 


Q0^  tU  0Ame  <Eui$or. 


Sermons  preached  in  a  Collegre  Chapel,  with  an  Ap- 
pendix.   Second  Edition.    Crown  8vo,  ^s. 

Personality,  Biunan  and  Divine.     Being  the  Bampton 
Lectures  for  the  year  1894.    Crown  Svo,  6j. 

University  and  Cathedral  Sermons.    Crown  Svo,  5;. 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LTD.,  LONDON. 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE 

AN  ESSAY 

ON 

THE  SPIRITUAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  MATTER 


BY 


J.   R.   ILLINGWORTH,   MA. 

AirraoR  of  'fbbsohautt  mniAM  amd  divimb* 


OToN  TAR  Ikacto'n  ecTi  thc  rcNcceooc  TeAecBciCHC,  taythn  4>AMeN 

TMN    <t)Y'ciN    cTnAI    CKa'cTOY. ARIST.   Pol. 


Hondon 
MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Limited 

NEW  YOKK  :  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1898 

AO  rights  rtstrvtJ 


fe^ 


0;ffot5 

HORACE  HART,   PRINTER  TO  THE  UNTVERSITT 


PREFACE 

Much  of  the  best  philosophical  writing  in 
England,  of  late  years,  has  been  critical,  or,  in  the 
technical  and  proper  sense  of  the  word,  sceptical. 
But  critical  and  sceptical  phases,  in  the  progress 
of  thought,  can  never,  from  their  very  nature,  be 
other  than  temporary  things :  they  sift  and  question 
the  constructions  of  the  past ;  but  only  with  a  view 
to  prepare  for  those  that  are  to  come.  For  the 
world,  after  all,  is  a  fact ;  sun,  moon,  and  stars  are 
real ;  men  and  women  live  and  love ;  the  moral 
law  is  strong ; — in  a  word,  the  universe  exists,  and 
some  positive  account  of  it  must  needs  be  true; 
it  can  never  be  finally  explcuned  by  a  negation. 
Hence  the  result  of  recent  criticism  has  been  to 
make  the  need  of  reconstruction  more  apparent; 
and  men  are  consequently  feeling,  in  various  direc- 
tions, after  positive,  synthetic  ways  of  thought. 

The  following  brief  essay  is  not  an  attempt  to 
make  any  new  or  original  contribution  toward  such 
thought :  but  it  is  written  in  the  interest  of  synthesis, 


vi  PREFACE 

and  aims  at  combining  some  ideas,  which  are 
famihar  enough  in  themselves,  but  are  not  always 
viewed  in  combination — ideas  on  the  relation  of 
nature  to  religion.  For  one  love,  amid  all  our  dis- 
cord, unites  the  modern  world ;  we  all  of  us  love 
nature  in  our  several  ways ;  men  of  science,  poets, 
painters,  men  of  religion,  men  of  affairs,  are  equally 
affected  by  its  spell — the  wonder  of  its  processes, 
the  glory  of  its  aspect,  the  contrast  of  its  calmness 
to  the  coil  of  human  care.  And  with  this  feeling 
for  nature— which,  we  are  probably  right  in  sup- 
posing, was  never  so  widely  diffused  as  at  the 
present  day — comes  an  increased  susceptibility  to 
those  spiritual  emotions  which  the  presence  of 
nature  inspires,  and  which  lie  at  the  root  of  what  we 
call  natural  religion.  The  sense  of  natural  religion 
is  therefore  strong  in  the  modern  mind;  and  this 
of  itself  is  an  important  step  towards  positive, 
constructive  belief.  But  we,  of  later  ages,  for  whom 
history  has  happened,  can  never  again  revert  to  a 
mere  religion  of  nature ;  any  more  than  to  a  state 
of  nature,  in  society,  or  policy,  or  morals.  For  we 
have  learned,  from  nature  itself,  that  the  law  of  life 
is  evolution,  and  that  evolution  means  an  increase 
of  distinctive  form.  Religion,  like  all  other  things, 
must  have  become,  as  in  fact  it  has  become,  in- 
creasingly articulate  with  the  process  of  the  years ; 
its  development  more  definite,  or,  in  religious  lan- 
guage, its  revelation  more  precise.    And  the  plea  of 


PREFACE  ^ 

this  essay  is  that  the  Incarnation  is  the  congruous 
ch'max  of  such  development ;  that  the  more  we 
analyse  natural  religion,  the  more  it  tends  to  such 
an  issue ;  while  conversely  the  Incarnation  presup- 
poses such  a  past.  This  is  no  more,  of  course,  than 
theologians,  in  all  ages,  have  maintained ;  and  to 
many  readers,  therefore,  it  may  seem  a  common- 
place. But  its  restatement  will,  perhaps,  be  per- 
mitted for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  more 
attracted  by  the  question  than  acquainted  with  its 
history ;  in  the  hope  that  some  who,  under  modem 
influence,  have  felt  the  fascination  of  natural  re- 
ligion, may  be  led  to  recognize  its  culmination  in 
the  Christian  creed. 

As  this  essay  is  in  some  sense  a  sequel  to  my 
lectures  on  •  Personality ' — being  a  further  applica- 
tion of  the  same  line  of  thought — I  have  here 
assumed  certain  positions,  which  are  there  defended 
at  length ;  and  at  the  same  time  enlarged  upon 
certain  others — more  especially  in  the  Appendix — 
which  seemed,  in  their  present  connexion,  to  need 
further  emphasis. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I. 

MATTER  AND  SPIRIT. 

PACK 

I.  The  distinction  between  matter  and  spirit  dates 
from  the  'body  and  soul'  of  primitive 
philosophy 2 

Matter  and  spirit,  however  different,  are  only 
known  in  combination       ....  2 

Therefore  neither  can  be  completely  known  .  5 

But  they  represent  very  distinct  and  dis- 
tinguishable phases  of  experience       .        .  6 

For  spirit  is  what  thinks,  and  wills,  and  loves ; 
matter  is  what  moves  in  space  ...  6 

II.  While  matter  is  of  use  to  spirit,  spirit  is  of 

no  use  to  matter 9 

Illustrations  of  this  fact         ....     9-1 3 
This  suggests  a  teleological  relation  between 

the  two ;  Le.  that 
Spirit  is  the  final  cause  of  matter .  .         .  14-15 

Bacon  and  Spinoza  criticize  final  causes         .         15 
But  (i)  Bacon's  objection  is  only  to  their 

misuse       .  .  16 

(2)  Spinoza's  objection  involves  an 
impossible  separation  between 
man  and  the  universe  17 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

III.  Spiritual    intensity,    in    human   judgement, 

outweighs  material  immensity    .         .         .  18-19 
And  thereby  justifies  its  right  to  subordinate 

the  latter  to  itself 20-21 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE  RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  OF  THE 
MATERIAL  WORLD. 


Among 

the  uses  of  matter  to  spirit  its 

religious 

influence  is  the  chief 

.  22-23 

Historical  illustrations  of  this. 

I. 

Ancient  Uterature : — 

Eg}'ptian  hymns 

.  24-25 

TheVedas 

,  26-28 

Zend  Avesta     . 

.  29-50 

The  Hebrew  Psalms 

•  30-31 

II. 

Greek  and  Roman  literature  : — 

Poets        .... 

•  32-33 

Philosophers     . 

34 

III. 

Christian  literature : — 

Fathers    .... 

•  35-37 

Mediaeval  writers 

.        .        38 

IV. 

The  Renaissance : — 

Campanella 

39 

Petrarch  .... 

40 

V. 

Later  Theologians : — 

Suso         .... 

41 

Zwingli     .... 

42 

F^n^lon  .... 

43 

W.  Law   . 

43 

CONTENTS  lA 

PAGE 

VL  Modem  Literature  : — 

Shelley 45 

Byron 46 

Wordsworth 47 

These    fllustrations  are  typical    of   innumerable 
others;    and   evince   a    mystic   emotion   more 

fundamental  than  any  varieties  of  creed    .        .  48 


CHAPTER   III. 

DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE. 

The  religious  influence  of  external  nature  is  a  fact 
of  greater  magnitude  than  any  one  of  its  Inter- 
pretations          49-50 

This  fact  points  to  a  spiritual  reality  behind  things; 
unless 

(i)  It  is  an  illusion 50 

(2)  The  faculties  which  feel  it  are  untrust- 
worthy  50 

The  suggestion  that  it  may  be  an  illusion  raises 

the  question,  What  do  we  mean  by  reality  ?       .        51 

We  find  on  reflection,  that  we  cannot  mean  •  exist- 
ence in  space';  but  permanent  relation  to 
personality 51-56 

Judged  by  this  criterion,  the  sensible  is  quite  as 
real  as  the  scientific  aspect  of  the  world ;  the 
two  things  impressing  diff^erent  faculties  in  us, 
but  with  equal  justification       ....        56 

The  objection  that  feeling  is  less  trustworthy  than 
reason,  ignores  the  fact  that  they  are  co-ordinate 


zfi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

elements  of  the  selfsame  personal  experience; 
and  that  the  influence  in  question  is  not  merely 
emotionally,  but  personally  felt         .         .         .  57-61 
But  if  this  influence  cannot  be  discredited,  it  points 

to  a  spiritual  presence  in  nature        .        .         .  62-64 
The  relation  of  this  spirit  to  nature  can  only  be 
interpreted  on  the  analogy  of  human  personality 

(for  we  know  no  other) 65 

Human  Personality  combines — 

(i)  Transcendence  of  matter     ...        65 
(2)  Immanence  in  matter  ...         67 

This  analogy  therefore  excludes — 

(i)  Pantheism  (mere  immanence)     .        .        69 

(2)  Deism  (mere  transcendence)        .         .         69 

(3)  Monism  (mere  identity)       ...         70 
While  it  harmonizes  witlh  Trinitarianism        .        .         72 


CHAPTER  IV. 

DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN   MAN. 

If  God  is  immanent  in  nature,  He  must  be  imma- 
nent in  man  (as  being  part  of  nature)        .         .         74 
Evidence  of  this  in  conscience  .         .         .         75 
Evidence  of  this  in  inspiration  ...         76 
This  points  to  the  Incarnation  as  its  climax  .         .         77 
I.  The   tendency  to  believe  in  incarnations  is 
urged  as  an  argument  against  the  truth  of 

the  Incarnation 78 

But  this  only  holds  good  if  an  incarnation  is 

antecedently  improbable   .         .         .         .         79 
Otherwise  it  points  in  the  opposite  direction  .         80 


CONTENTS  sii] 

PAGE 

II.  Again,  the  Incarnation  is  thought  improbable 

because  miraculous 8i 

But  being  ex  hypothesi  an  unique  event,  it  is 
not '  miraculous '  in  the  sense  of  the  objec- 
tion           81-86 

III.  The  primary  evidence  for  the  Incarnation  is 
spiritual;  being  the  self-revelation  of  a 
Person 87-88 

It  then  rather  supports  its  accompanying 
miracles,  than  they  it         ...         .  88-90 

While  the  lapse  of  time,  which  weakens  the 
weight  of  miracles,  strengthens  that  of 
prophecy 90-93 

rV.  Moreover,  the  Incarnation  is  redemptive,  its 

object  being  to  restore  a  law  already  broken  92-95 
And  this  fact  must  affect  our  view  of  its 
miracles : — 

(i)  The  Virgin  birth     ....  95-96 

(2)  The  miracles  of  healing  .         .         .         97 

(3)  The  cosmic  miracles       .         .         .         98 

(4)  The  Resurrection  .        .        .         99-100 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES. 

The  objection  to  miracles  is  chiefly  based  on 
the  uniformity  of  nature.  Mozley's  answer  to 
this loi-ioa 

But  we  now  think  more  of  the  'unity,'  than  the 

'  uniformity '  of  nature 103 


xiT  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

And  this  is  a  spiritual  conception  .  .  .104 
But  spirit  asserts  its  own  superiority  to  matter  .  105 
The  analysis  of  our  conception  of  causation  points 

in  the  same  direction  .  .  .  .  10  6-1 10 
Dr.    Newman   on    the    superiority  of  moral    to 

physical  law 1 1 1 

Personal  experience  is  the  root  of  all  knowledge  .  n  2 
And  this  reveals  the  moral  law,  whose  claim  to 

supremacy  justifies  miracles  .  .  .  .  113 
Lotze  on  the  relation  of  the  'absolute'  to  matter  11 4-1 15 
The  Incarnation  has  a  cosmic,  as  well  as  a  human 

significance,  and  its  miracles   harmonize    with 

this 116-118 

The  general  cessation  of  miracles  was  as  needful 

as  their  occurrence 1 19-122 

But  they  have  assisted  to  emphasize  the  belief  in 
particular  providence,  which  is  their  modem 
analogue 122-124 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS. 

Matter  has  a  secondary  as  well  as  a  primary  con- 
nexion with  religion,  due  to  the  reaction  upon 
it  of  the  human  mind       ....        125-127 

For  primitive  man  inevitably  associates 

(i)  his  gods  with  particular  places     .         .       128 

(2)  and  his  service  of  them  with  particular 

rites 129 

(3)  Illustrations  of  this     ....      130 


CONTENTS  XV 

PAGE 

But  wherever  an  omnipresent  God  is  specially 
realized,  He  specially  is    .        .        .        .        131-132 

The  Incarnation  sanctions  and  spiritualizes  this 
principle — 

(i)  Christ's  attitude  toward  the  body  .       133 

(2)  His  attitude  towards  nature  .         .       134 

(3)  His  symbolic  teaching         .         .         -135 

(4)  His  symbolic  action    .        .        .        .136 
Matter    is    utilized   but    subordinated    to    spirit 

throughout 137 

The  same  principle  runs  through  Christian  history — 

(i)  In  the  treatment  of  the  human  body   138-139 

(2)  In  the  sacramental  system  ,         .        139-143 

(3)  In  art 143-M7 

Hence  the  religious  influence  of  art  and  sacra- 
ment is  as  real  as  that  of  material  nature,  which 

they  emphasize  and  intensify    .        .         .        147-150 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  (with  that  of  the 
Trinity  which  it  involves)  though  philosophical 
in  aspect,  was  essentially  practical  in  origin       151-154 

For  the  purport  of  the  Incarnation  was  to  reveal 
God  as  love ;  and  this  would  have  been  unin- 
telligible without  the  revelation  of  a  plurality  of 
Persons  in  the  Godhead,  between  whom  love 
exists 154-157 

And  the  object  of  this  revelation  was  to  influence 
human  life  in  the  only  way  in  which  it  can  be 
completely  influenced :  i.  e.  by  love  .        .       157-160 


CONTENTS 


But  deeds  are  more  than  words  of  love ;  hence  the 
revelation  appropriately  began  with  the  actual 
life  of  Christ i6i 

And  the  practical  power  of  this  life  reflects  retro- 
spective light  upon  the  metaphysical  doctrines 
which  it  involves 162 

And  is  thus  the  strongest  evidence  of  their  truth    163-165 


APPENDIX. 

I.  Personal  Identity 167 

II.  Freewill 190 


i\ 


DIVINE    IMMANENCE 


CHAPTER  I 

MATTER   AND   SPIRIT 

THE  nature  of  the  relation  between  spirit 
and  matter  may  perhaps  be  thought  too  ab- 
struse a  problem  to  be  of  general  interest.  Yet 
it  is  a  question  which  lies  at  the  root  of  all  our 
different  theories  of  life ;  of  our  art,  of  our  moral 
conduct,  of  our  religion  or  irreligion  ;  of  the  gloom 
that  darkens,  or  the  hope  that  glorifies  the  sunset 
of  our  days.  We  all  have  opinions  of  one  kind  or 
another  on  the  point,  and  it  deeply  concerns  us, 
seeing  the  nature  of  the  issues  they  involve,  that 
those  opinions  should,  if  possible,  be  true. 

The  subject  is  not  therefore  really  unpractical, 
or  remote  from  common  interest ;  and,  as  it  has 
been  much  discussed  of  recent  years,  for  various 
reasons,  and  from  various  points  of  view,  no 
apology  will  perhaps  be  needed,  for  one  more 
recurrence  to  the  question,  in  its  bearing  on  re- 
ligious life  and  thought. 

B 


•  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT  [chap. 

Body  and  soul  is  a  distinction  which  dates 
from  primitive  philosophy ;  we  find  it,  in  crude 
conception,  among  the  earliest  and  rudest  races ; 
whether  drawn  from  the  visions  of  dreamland  or 
elsewhere.  And  with  the  progress  of  reflection 
this  distinction  gradually  passed,  after  much  sifting 
and  refinement  by  successive  schools  of  thought, 
into  the  more  complete  and  comprehensive  anti- 
thesis, between  what  we  now  call  spirit  and  matter. 

Now  the  first  thing  to  notice  about  spirit  and 
matter  is  that,  however  we  regard  them, — whether 
as  totally  different  things,  or  as  different  aspects 
of  the  same  thing, — we  only  know  them  as  a  fact 
in  combination. 

First,  there  is  the  material  world  outside  us, 
earth,  sea,  sky,  and  sun,  and  stars ;  the  manifold 
movement  of  its  processes,  the  life  with  which  it 
teems,  the  beauty  of  its  aspect,  the  music  of  its 
sounds.  It  existed  before  we  were  born — this 
solid  universe  of  things — and  will  continue  to  exist 
when  we  are  gone.  We  cannot  easily  be  brought 
to  regard  it  as  in  any  way  dependent  upon  our- 
selves, and  we  are  always  ready  to  'vanquish 
Berkeley  with  a  grin.'  Yet  a  little  reflection  will 
convince  us  that  our  knowledge  of  the  world  is 
largely  qualified  and  coloured  by  the  constitution 
of  our  mind.  The  mind  receives  its  information, 
to  begin  with,  from  the  senses,  and  the  impressions 
of  sense  are  very  different  from  the  things  which 


l]  MATTER  AND  SPIRIT  3 

they  reflect.  The  hues  of  the  sunset  and  the  rain- 
bow, with  all  their  power  to  move  the  soul,  are 
due  to  movements  among  atoms  to  which  we  can 
ascribe  no  colour;  and  the  musical  sounds  that 
seem  to  us  so  spiritual,  flow  from  vibrations — 
merely  mechanical  vibrations — of  the  air.  The 
same  is  the  case  with  the  other  senses ;  they  only 
present  us  with  effects.  While  scientific  men  assure 
us  that  even  sensitive  perception  is  by  no  means  so 
simple  a  process  as  it  seems,  and  involves  acts  of 
combination,  and  comparison,  and  inference  which, 
however  instinctively  performed,  are  in  their  nature 
intellectual.  And  when  we  pass  from  simple  to 
complex  perceptions,  this  action  of  the  mind  be- 
comes quite  obvious.  In  looking  at  a  landscape, 
for  instance,  we  see  more  than  a  parti-coloured 
panorama,  which  is,  of  course,  all  that  is  reflected 
in  the  eye ;  we  distinguish  and  recognize  its  features, 
trees,  flowers,  houses,  cattle,  birds;  and  this  im- 
plies previous  knowledge,  and  memory,  and  thought ; 
we  interpret  what  we  see,  and  though  custom  has 
made  the  process  automatic,  it  is  none  the  less  of 
mental  origin.  The  primary  aspect  of  the  world 
therefore  does  not  show  us  matter  by  itself,  but 
matter  as  it  affects  our  mind,  in  a  particular  way, 
through  the  senses,  and  is  at  the  same  moment 
affected  in  particular  ways  by  our  mind.  Nor  does 
science  alter  the  case.  Science  indeed  penetrates 
behind  this  primary  aspect  of  the  world,  and 
B  2 


4  MATTER  AND  SPIRIT  [chap. 

presents  us  with  a  different  picture.  It  discovers 
the  machinery  by  which  the  scenic  effect  is  pro- 
duced ;  atoms,  energy,  ether,  and  the  laws  which 
they  obey,  or  in  other  words,  the  ways  in  which 
they  act.  But  all  this  brings  us  no  nearer  to  the 
knowledge  of  matter  by  itself.  On  the  contrary, 
it  lands  us  in  a  region  of  theories,  hypotheses,  ideas, 
which,  however  true  we  may  believe  them  to  be, 
are  not  material  but  mental.  Thus  matter,  as  we 
know  it,  is  everywhere  and  always  fused  with 
mind :  and  in  the  nature  of  the  case  it  always 
must  be  so  ;  for  *  to  know  a  thing,'  of  course,  means 
to  bring  it  into  relation  to  our  mind ;  and  our 
mind,  as  we  have  seen,  is  not  a  mirror  which 
passively  reflects,  but  an  agent  which  helps  to 
constitute  the  object  of  its  ken. 

The  case  is  the  same  when  we  turn  to  spirit,  for 
that  also,  as  we  know  it,  is  always  connected  with 
matter.  Not  only  do  we  depend  on  the  senses, 
which  are  material  things,  to  awaken  our  intelli- 
gence, and  feeling,  and  will ;  but  we  cannot  think 
at  all,  we  cannot  be  conscious,  without  a  brain, 
changes  in  which  accompany  our  every  change  of 
thought. 

The  fact,  indeed,  that  we  are  unaware  of  the 
movements  taking  place  in  our  brain,  may  some- 
times mislead  us  into  speaking  of  purely  spiritual 
experience ;  but  no  experience,  however  spiritual, 
can  be  other  than  a  state  of  consciousness,  and 


l]  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT  5 

therefore  of  the  material  organ  upon  which  con- 
sciousness depends. 

But  if  matter  and  spirit  are  thus  only  known  in 
combination,  it  follows  that  neither  can  be  com- 
pletely known ;  since  we  cannot  disentangle  their 
respective  contributions  to  the  joint  result  which  we 
call  *  experience.'  Hence  it  is  that  every  possible 
shade  of  opinion  has  existed  on  the  relationship 
between  the  two;  from  the  view  that  regards 
mind  as  a  passing  harmony  of  matter,  to  the  view 
that  regards  matter  as  a  dream  of  mind.  What 
we  actually  know,  at  first  hand,  is  our  personal 
experience,  in  which  the  two  factors  are  inex- 
tricably combined  ;  and  directly  we  go  beyond  this 
to  speak  of  matter  or  spirit  by  themselves,  we  are 
making  abstraction  of  one  element  from  our  con- 
crete experience,  without  any  means  of  knowing 
whether  such  an  abstraction  can  exist,  except  in 
the  mind  that  makes  it.  It  is,  of  course,  logically 
possible  that  the  two  things  may  be  independent 
and  separable  realities,  as  the  natural  dualists  or 
natural  realists  believe ;  or  that  either  may  be  a 
mere  mode  of  the  other,  as  idealism  and  material- 
ism respectively  maintain ;  or  yet  again,  that  the 
two  may  be  co-ordinate  aspects,  or  manifestations, 
or  functions  of  one  reality.  The  claims  of  this 
latter  opinion  have  been  revived  of  recent  years 
under  the  name  of  monism;  but  it  should  be 
remembered  that  monism  is  not  really  newer  than 


6  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT  [chap. 

any  of  the  alternative  conjectures  ;  they  are  all  as 
old  as  philosophy,  and  remain  conjectures  still. 

But  leaving  conjecture  for  the  present,  and  limit- 
ing our  thoughts  to  what  we  know,  we  find  that 
though  we  cannot  in  fact  separate  spirit  and 
matter,  yet  the  two  words  represent  very  distinct 
phases  of  our  total  experience ;  and  phases  which, 
whatever  the  nature  of  their  ultimate  connexion, 
are  perfectly  separable  in  thought.  Thus  the 
fundamental  characteristic  of  spirit,  as  we  know  it 
in  human  personality,  is  self-consciousness,  the 
power  to  make  mental  distinction  between  self  and 
other  things,  and  to  regard  all  other  things  as 
objects  over  against  our  subjective  self:  while 
spiritual  life  consists  in  the  free  selection,  and  con- 
scious pursuit  of  the  various  objects  of  knowledge, 
affection,  or  practical  endeavour,  which  we  are  thus 
able  to  present  to  ourselves.  Our  action  is  thus 
determined,  in  technical  terms,  by  final  causes ; 
that  is,  by  causes  which  do  not  exercise  a  physical 
compulsion,  but  appeal  to  the  mind  as  ends,  aims, 
purposes,  ideals,  which  we  are  free  either  to  follow 
or  refuse.  Hence  we  are  self-determined ;  since, 
from  the  objects  that  occur  to  us,  we  can  choose 
the  one  which  we  shall  make  our  own ;  and  as  by 
successive  acts  of  choice  we  gradually  mould  and 
shape  our  character,  we  are,  in  a  measure,  self- 
creative,  causes  of  ourselves  {caussae  sui).  This 
capacity  of  self-determination,   and    therefore    of 


l]  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT  7 

self-creation,  compels  us  to  place  spirit  in  a  rank 
by  itself.  Other  things  are  determined  from  with- 
out; they  arc  what  external  forces  make  them; 
they  do  not  choose  what  they  will  be  But  spirit 
chooses  its  own  end,  elects  what  it  will  become, 
and  thereby  asserts  its  existence,  as  having  a  value 
for  itself.  And  a  being  which  thus  claims  to  exist 
for  its  own  sake,  and  be  its  own  end,  thereby  justi- 
fies its  existence :  it  has  in  our  eyes  a  right  to 
exist,  by  the  very  fact  of  willing  its  own  existence. 
It  has,  as  we  say,  an  absolute  value  compared  with 
merely  material  things,  whose  reason  for  existence 
lies  in  their  relation  to  other  things  outside 
themselves ;  like  cogs  in  a  wheel,  links  in  a 
chain,  fragments  of  a  machine  or  picture  that 
possess  no  meaning  when  detached  from  the 
whole. 

Regarded  simply  from  a  metaphysical  point  of 
view  then,  as  self-conscious  and  self-determined, 
spirit  reigns  in  a  realm  apart.  But  of  course  it  is 
much  more  than  a  metaphysical  abstraction ;  it  is 
ethical  and  emotional  as  well.  Its  power  of  self- 
determination  enables  it  to  act  from  a  sense  of 
duty,  to  obey  a  moral  law,  and  in  so  doing  become 
good ;  while  its  goodness  finds  highest  expression 
in  the  life  of  self-sacrificing  love,  which  is  only 
possible  to  a  being  that  is  both  self-conscious  and 
free ;  and  which  we  recognize  as  the  end  of  ends, 
the  reality  that  needs  no  explanation. 


8  MATTER  AND  SPIRIT  [chap. 

*  For  life,  with  all  it  yields,  of  joy  and  woe 
And  hope  and  fear, — believe  the  aged  friend, — 
Is  just  our  chance  of  the  prize  of  learning  love, 
How  love  might  be,  hath  been  indeed,  and  is^/ 

Then  as  to  matter:  what  do  we  know  of  it? 
The  term  is  often  used  as  if  it  implied  some  common 
stuff,  of  which  individual  things  are  made.  But  no 
analysis  has  yet  been  able  to  detect  such  a  common 
stuff.  On  the  contrary,  we  find  a  number  of  primi- 
tive elements,  which  recent  science,  instead  of 
diminishing  has  considerably  increased.  Matter 
is  the  sum  total  of  all  these  elements,  regarded  as 
possessing  a  particular  attribute,  namely  materiality, 
or  the  property  of  occupying  space :  while,  as  all 
the  occupants  of  space  are  in  motion,  molecular 
or  molar,  occupation  of  space  may  be  said  to  be 
practically  synonymous  with  movement  in  space. 
Matter  then  is  the  name  for  what  moves  in  space. 
It  is  at  present  believed  to  consist  of  atoms  which 
have  different  chemical  characteristics,  that  may 
possibly  be  due  to  different  mechanical  arrange- 
ments ;  but  here  we  pass  into  the  region  of  hypo- 
thesis, and  beyond  this  all  is  hypothetical  as  to 
what  atoms  ultimately  are.  At  any  rate,  their 
ultimate  constitution  is  out  of  reach  of  our  senses  ; 
and  it  remains  that  matter  as  we  know  it  is  an 
effect,  a  phenomenon  or  appearance,  a  manifestation 
of  something  other  than  meets  either  hand  or  eye. 
^  Browning,  A  Death  in  the  Desert. 


l]  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT  9 

Briefly  then  spirit  is  what  thinks  and  wills  and 
loves ;  and  matter  is  what  moves  in  space :  and 
whatever  their  ultimate  relationship  may  be,  we 
may  fairly  speak  of  two  things  whose  modes  of 
manifestation  are  so  different,  as  for  practical 
purposes  two  different  things.  Adopting  this  use 
of  language  then,  the  next  fact  which  we  wish  to 
note  is  that,  while  matter  is  of  use  to  spirit,  spirit 
is  of  no  use  to  matter. 

One  might,  of  course,  put  the  case  in  a  more 
general  form,  by  substituting  'consciousness'  for 
'  spirit,'  and  saying  that,  while  matter  is  of  use  to 
consciousness,  consciousness  is  of  no  use  to  matter ; 
thus  including  in  the  statement  every  form  of  con- 
scious life,  from  tlie  lowest  sensitive  organism 
upward.  But  what  is  true,  in  its  measure,  of  all 
conscious  life,  is  true  in  a  much  more  eminent 
degree  of  spirit.  And,  as  spirit  is  the  thing  with 
which  we  are  dealing,  we  will  confine  our  attention 
to  that ;  merely  remarking  that  the  same  line  of 
thought  admits  of  this  wider  application. 

While  then  matter  is  of  use — incessant  and 
inevitable  use — to  spirit,  spirit,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  of  no  use  to  matter.  Man  can  improve  material 
things,  of  course,  from  his  own  point  of  view,  by 
employing  them  for  purposes  of  science  or  of  art ; 
but  in  so  doing,  he  only  alters  their  relation  to 
himself;  he  does  not  and  cannot  change  their 
nature.     Electricity    gains    nothing    by    guidance 


lo  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT  [chap. 

along  wires;  marble  remains  marble,  as  much  in 
the  statue  as  in  the  rock ;  gold  is  no  better  for 
coinage,  nor  flowers  for  cultivation,  except  in  their 
relationship  to  man.  Human  interference  does  not 
anywise  affect,  either  the  constitution  of  natural 
elements,  or  the  action  of  natural  laws. 

But  reverse  the  picture,  and  the  opposite  is  the 
case.  Our  every  state  of  consciousness  depends, 
as  we  have  seen,  upon  the  brain,  and  therefore  upon 
the  blood  that  nourishes  the  brain,  and  therefore 
on  the  chemical  elements  that  form  the  blood. 
Without  oxygen,  and  nitrogen,  and  phosphorus, 
and  carbon,  we  could  neither  think,  nor  will,  nor 
love. 

But  thought  and  will  and  love  must  needs  com- 
municate themselves  to  others ;  spirit  craves  inter- 
course with  spirit ;  and  here  again  we  depend  on 
matter.  Tongue  and  ear  are  material  things; 
words  are  movements  of  the  air;  and  printing 
press  and  telegraph  extend  their  sway.  Machinery 
again,  with  its  coal,  and  steam,  and  iron,  is  ever  at 
work  to  enlarge  the  practical  dominion  of  our  will ; 
while  art — art  takes  up  the  stubborn  elements  of 
earth  and  transmutes  them  in  its  crucible  to  spiritual 
things.  Hellenic  sculptures,  Gothic  cathedrals,  me- 
diaeval painting,  modern  music,  are  only  modes  of 
matter,  when  regarded  by  themselves :  yet  through 
them  the  soul  of  man  has  given  utterance  and  per- 
manence to  all  the  varying  phases  of  his  inward 


ll  MATTER  AND  SPIRIT  it 

spiritual  story ;  which  else  would  have  been  fugitive 
and  dumb. 

Further,  to  give  expression  to  a  thing  is  to  realize 
it,  in  the  sense  of  making  it  more  real ;  and  hence 
matter,  as  being  the  language  of  spirit,  is  also  the 
medium  of  its  realization.  Thoughts  float  idly 
across  the  mind,  till  they  have  been  precipitated  in 
print ;  theories  remain  abstract  and  uncertain,  till 
they  have  been  tested  by  experiment  ;  good  inten- 
tions are  of  no  avail,  till  they  have  faced  the  resis- 
tance of  the  outer  world,  and  in  overcoming  its 
opposition  become  moral  acts ;  and  love  can  never 
rest,  till  it  has  proved  its  own  intensity  by  a  thou- 
sand tender,  thoughtful,  self-sacrificing  deeds.  In 
every  case  contact  with  matter  strengthens  the 
spiritual  fibre,  forcing  vagueness  into  outline,  con- 
fusion into  clearness,  doubt  into  decision,  hesitation 
into  act.  It  is  the  necessary  means  by  which  our 
spiritual  life  becomes  actual,  concrete,  real.  Nor 
is  it  only  as  a  means  of  expression  that  matter 
ministers  to  spirit.  It  has  also  an  important 
reaction  upon  character  and  conduct. 

'The  floating  clouds  their  state  shall  lend 
To  her ;  for  her  the  willow  bend  ; 
Nor  shall  she  fail  to  see 
Even  in  the  motions  of  the  storm 
Grace  that  shall  mould  the  maiden's  form 
By  silent  sympathy. 


xa  MATTER  AND  SPIRIT  [chap. 

'The  stars  of  midnight  shall  be  dear 
To  her ;  and  she  shall  lean  her  ear 
In  many  a  secret  place 
Where  rivulets  dance  their  wayward  round, 
And  beauty  born  of  murmuring  sound 
Shall  pass  into  her  face^' 
This   is   more  than   a   poet's   conceit.     It   is  a 
description  of  what  happens  daily,  and   in  more 
ways  than    most    men    are   aware ;    the    gradual 
moulding  of  our  thoughts  and  feelings,  our  habitual 
expression,  our  face  and  form,  by  subtle  influence 
of  outward  things.     Plato  first  called  attention  to 
this  principle,  and  it  has  been  called  from  him, 
platonic.     But  all  great  thinkers  have  recognized 
its  action,  from  Plato  to  the  present  day.     None 
more  so  than   Browning.     Has  a  man  reasoned 
himself  into  unbelief?    Then — 

'Just  when  we're  safest 
There 's  a  sunset  touch,  a  fancy  from 
A  flower  bell  2,' 
and  the  reasoning  fades  away.     Have  the  souls  of 
two  lovers  been  melted  into  one  ? 
*  The  forests  had  done  it ;  there  they  stood  ; 
We  caught  for  a  moment  the  powers  at  play: 
They  had  mingled  us  so  for  once  and  good, 
Their  work  was  done^.' 

^  Wordsworth,  '  Three  years  she  grew.' 
*  Browning,  Bishop  Blougram^s  Apology, 
'  Id,.  By  the  Fireside. 


l]  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT  13 

Have  two  others   missed  their   mutual  vocation? 
They  have  profaned  in  so  doing  a  natural  sacra- 
ment, which  '  made  things  plain  in  vain/ 
'What  was  the  sea  for?   What,  the  grey. 

Sad  church,  that  solitary  day, 

Crosses  and  graves  and  swallow's  call? 

Was  there  naught  better  than  to  enjoy? 

No  feat  which,  done,  would  make  time  break 

And  let  us  pent-up  creatures  through 

Into  eternity,  our  due? 

No  forcing  earth  teach  heaven's  employ^?' 
Nor  are  such  things  exceptional ;  they  are 
common  situations  of  every  day,  and  must  have 
recurred,  since  primaeval  man  first  wove  his  legends 
of  the  dawn ;  matter  everywhere  and  always, 
fashioning,  inspiring,  controlling,  quickening,  the 
processes  of  spiritual  life. 

Here  then  we  are  face  to  face  with  a  plain  fact 
of  experience.  Throughout  the  entire  range  of  their 
co-existent  activity,  matter  subserves  spirit,  and  that 
not  in  one  way  only,  but  in  a  variety  of  subtle, 
and  delicate,  and  complex  ways ;  while  in  the 
opposite  direction,  nothing  of  the  kind  takes  place. 
When  therefore  we  find  that  the  material  world, 
which  can  derive,  as  we  have  already  seen,  no 
possible  benefit  from  spirit,  is  in  countless  ways 
adapted  to  further  spiritual  life;  it  is  hard  to 
resist  the  conclusion  that  matter  exists  for  this 
*  Browning,  Dis  Aliter  Visum, 


14  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT  [chap. 

very  end,  and  that  all  its  ingenuity  of  intricate 
arrangement  is  meant  to  serve  the  purpose,  which 
in  fact  it  so  elaborately  serves.  If  matter  lay  at 
our  feet,  as  a  thing  to  be  employed  or  neglected 
at  will,  the  case  would  be  different;  and  we  might 
then  regard  its  use  as  accidental.  But  its  fusion 
with  spirit  is,  in  fact,  far  too  intimate,  its  correla- 
tion too  exact  to  admit  of  any  such  idea.  It  is 
obviously  part  and  parcel  of  the  same  system  with 
spirit ;  and  if  so  must,  we  argue,  be  qualified  through- 
out by  the  final  causality  which  is  spirit's  goal. 

'  Since,  in  the  seeing  soul,  all  worth  lies,  I  assert, — 
And  nought  i'  the  world,  which,  save  for  soul 

that  sees,  inert 
Was,  is,  and   would  be  ever, — stuff  for  trans- 
muting,— null 
And  void  until  man's  breath  evoke  the  beautifuP.* 

The  case  may,  for  the  sake  of  emphasis,  be 
re-stated  thus.  We  attribute  an  absolute  worth  and 
dignity  to  spirit,  simply  because  it  possesses  the 
power  of  purpose,  purposeful  thought,  purposeful 
action,  purposeful  love.  Purpose  is  our  standard, 
our  inevitable  standard  of  value ;  not  this  or  that 
particular  purpose,  which  may  be  useful  to  our- 
selves, but  purpose  as  such,  the  free  determination 
to  realize  a  foreseen  end.  Our  mental  constitution 
compels  us  to  attribute  this  importance  to  the 
'  Browning,  Fijine  at  the  Fair,  55. 


l]  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT  15 

power  of  purpose ;  or,  to  put  it  otherwise,  our 
reason  justifies  us  in  so  doing.  Now  this  does  not 
merely  mean  that  we  prefer  things  which  have 
a  purpose  to  things  which  have  none.  It  means 
that  purpose,  when  once  recognized,  becomes  the 
necessary  and  self-evident  key  to  existence  ;  the 
final  category,  or  form  of  thought,  under  which 
we  are  compelled  to  regard  the  world.  For 
a  system  which  culminates  in  purpose  must  be 
purposeful  throughout.  Its  entire  process  must 
be  qualified  by  the  character  of  its  conclusion. 
And  hence  the  material  order  which  is  so  marvel- 
lously ministrant  to  spirit  must,  we  conclude,  be 
intended  so  to  be.     Spirit  must  be  its  final  cause. 

There  is  of  course  a  prejudice,  in  many  minds, 
against  all  consideration  of  final  causes ;  which 
Bacon  calls  '  anthropomorphic  conceptions,  rather 
than  cosmic  realities'  [ex  analogia  hominis  magis 
quam  universi),  and  Spinoza, '  mere  figments  of  the 
human  brain '  {nihil  nisi  humana  figmenta).  But 
what  really  provoked  this  criticism  was  the  frivol- 
ous and  futile  teleology,  which  substituted  the 
thought  of  final  for  that  of  physical  causation ; 
leading  men  to  think  they  knew  enough  about 
a  thing,  when  they  knew  its  presumed  purpose — 
often  a  very  credulously  and  crudely  presumed 
purpose — and  to  neglect  all  further  inquiry  into 
its  process  of  production,  that  is  to  say,  all  interest 
in  physical  science.     But  Bacon  fully  admits,  else- 


i6  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT  [chap. 

where,  that '  final  causes  have  their  place ' :  and  as 
the  subject  is  important  and  his  authority  has 
weight,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  quote  him  at 
length. 

*  For  to  say  that  the  hairs  of  the  eye-lids  are  Jor 
a  quickset  and  fence  about  the  sight ;  or  that  the 
firmness  of  the  skins  and  hides  of  living  creatures 
is  to  defend  them  from  the  extremities  of  heat  or 
cold :  or  that  the  bones  are  for  the  columns  or 
beams,  whereupon  the  frames  of  the  bodies  of  living 
creatures  are  built ;  or  that  the  leaves  of  trees  are 
for  protecting  of  the  fruit ;  or  that  the  clouds  are  for 
watering  of  the  earth  ;  or  that  the  solidness  of  the 
earth  is  for  the  station  and  mansion  of  living 
creatures  and  the  like,  is  well  inquired  and  collected 
in  metaphysique,  but  in  physique  they  are  imper- 
tinent. .  .  .  Not  because  those  final  causes  are  not 
true,  and  worthy  to  be  inquired,  being  kept  within 
their  own  province ;  but  because  their  excursions 
into  the  limits  of  physical  causes  hath  bred  a  vast- 
ness  and  solitude  in  that  track.  For  otherwise, 
keeping  their  precincts  and  borders,  men  are 
extremely  deceived  if  they  think  there  is  an 
enmity  or  repugnancy  at  all  between  them  .  .  . 
both  causes  being  true  and  compatible,  the  one 
declaring  an  intention,  the  other  a  consequence  only. 
Neither  doth  this  call  in  question,  or  derogate  from 
Divine  Providence,  but  highly  confirm  and  exalt 


l]  MATTER  AND  SPIRIT  17 

it.  For  as  in  civil  actions  he  is  the  greater  and 
deeper  politique,  that  can  make  other  men  the 
instruments  of  his  will  and  ends,  and  yet  never 
acquaint  them  with  his  purpose,  so  as  they  shall  do 
it  and  yet  not  know  what  they  do,  than  he  that 
imparteth  his  meaning  to  those  he  employeth  ;  so 
is  the  wisdom  of  God  more  admirable,  when  nature 
intendeth  one  thing,  and  Providence  draweth  forth 
another,  th«m  if  He  had  communicated  to  particular 
creatures  and  motions  the  characters  and  impres- 
sions of  His  Providence.* 

Spinoza's  objection  is  more  thorough-going,  but 
rests  upon  an  impossible  separation  between  man 
and  the  universe.  For  a  universe,  apart  from  and 
in  contrast  with  the  mind  that  knows  it,  is  a  mere 
creature  of  the  imagination,  which  cannot  be  con- 
strued into  thought ;  an  utterly  unthinkable,  mean- 
ingless abstraction  ;  while  a  universe  that  is  known 
to  mind  must  be  known  in  subjection  to  the  laws 
of  mind,  among  which  is  the  teleological  principle. 
But  Spinoza's  imaginative  picture,  for  all  its 
philosophic  impossibility,  has  been  widely  influ- 
ential, during  the  last  two  centuries  ;  through  the 
emphasis  it  has  given  to  the  contrast,  so  congenial 
to  a  scientific  age,  between  the  grandeur  of  the 
material  universe,  and  the  insignificance  of  man. 
It  is  important  therefore  to  notice  that  such  a  con- 
trast is  entirely  fallacious,  and  merely  arises  from 

c 


i8  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT  [chap. 

the  fact  that  we  see  the  magnitude  of  matter,  but 
cannot  see  the  magnitude  of  mind.  To  gain  a  truer 
view  of  their  relative  proportions,  we  must  begin 
by  confining  our  attention  to  the  earth  ;  as  the 
only  field  where  we  know  the  two  in  correlation. 
For  the  rest  of  the  stellar  universe  we  see  only  on 
its  material  side ;  and  while  all  analogy  leads  us  to 
infer  that  this  must  have  a  spiritual  counterpart,  we 
know  nothing  of  its  existence,  nature,  or  extent ; 
and  discussion  of  the  subject  is  therefore  utterly 
impossible. 

When  we  confine  our  view  to  the  earth  then,  it 
looms  large,  when  compared  with  its  inhabitants, 
and  endures  while  their  successive  generations  pass 
away.  But  if  intensity,  rather  than  extension,  be, 
as  we  cannot  help  believing,  the  true  measure  and 
criterion  of  worth,  a  single  human  spirit  far  out- 
soars  material  things.  What  then  of  the  millions 
upon  millions  now  inhabiting  the  earth  ?  and  what 
of  all  the  generations  that  have  passed  away,  or 
are  to  come  ?  Surely,  in  mere  number,  and  much 
more  when  measured  by  their  souls'  immensity, 
they  form  an  aggregate  which  dwarfs  to  nothing- 
ness the  size  of  their  temporary  home ;  while  if, 
after  all,  they  should  prove  immortal,  the  relative 
permanence  of  earthly  things  will  be  an  illusion — 
a  mere  optical  illusion. 

We  will  return  therefore,  without  further  apolc^, 
to  the  conclusion  that  we  had  reached,  the  con- 


l]  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT  19 

elusion  that  matter  exists  for  the  sake  of  spirit- 
Some  such  assumption,  indeed,  has  always  been 
implicitly  present  in  the  popular  mind  ;  but  our 
contention  is  that  this  assumption,  like  many 
another  of  the  implicit  convictions  of  common 
sense,  has  a  strong  metaphysical  foundation,  in 
the  necessities  of  human  thought ;  though  for  the 
sake  of  those  who  are  either  sceptical  or  shy  of 
metaphysic,  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  it  has  at 
least  serious  probability  in  its  favour. 

The  statement  that  matter  exists  for  the  sake 
of  spirit,  is,  it  will  be  noticed,  a  general  formula. 
It  does  not  imply  either  that  we  can  trace  the 
utility  of  every  material  phenomenon,  or  that  we 
need  suppose  every  material  phenomenon  to  be 
subservient  to  human  use:  it  merely  asserts  that, 
within  the  field  of  our  experience,  there  is  a 
constant  order  of  relation  between  the  two,  which 
is  never  reversed  ;  and  which  justifies  the  judge- 
ment in  point.  But  as  we  finite  beings  who  use 
matter,  and  find  it  so  adapted  to  our  use,  have  no 
share  in  its  original  production,  or  control  of  its 
general  course  ;  we  infer  that  it  must  be  guided  by 
a  spiritual  Being,  of  commensurate  capacity  and 
will ;  while  further  light  must  of  necessity  be 
thrown  upon  the  character  of  this  Being,  by  the 
nature  of  the  spiritual  purpose  which  He  enables 
matter  to  subserve. 

This  is  not,  it  should  be  noticed,  the  form  of 

C  2 


•o  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT  [chap. 

teleology,  or  argument  from  design,  which  relies 
upon  detailed  cases  of  adaptation  within  the 
material  region,  and  which  has  been  attacked  of 
late  years  on  the  ground  that  the  adaptations  in 
question  may  be  only  the  survivals  of  many 
failures.  The  attack  indeed  has  been  adequately 
answered,  but  with  that  we  are  not  now  concerned. 
What  we  are  here  contending  is  that  the  entire 
material  order,  with  all  its  infinite  complexity, 
ministers  to  another  and  a  higher  order  of  being, 
from  which  it  receives  no  reciprocal  return,  and  is 
therefore  intended  or  designed  so  to  do  ;  and  it  is  in 
the  width  and  variety  of  these  ministrations  that 
the  strength  of  the  argument  consists.  This  may 
be  called  the  higher  teleology;  and  while  it 
immensely  strengthens  the  probability  of  design 
within  the  material  order  itself,  is  unaffected  by 
objections  from  the  material  side.  It  can  only  be 
met,  as  we  have  seen,  by  denying  the  veracity  of 
our  faculties.  Man,  from  the  dawn  of  history,  has 
asked  why  ?  as  well  as  how  ?  why  am  I  ?  and 
why  is  the  world  ?  as  well  as  how  came  it  all  to 
be?  And  as  long  as  he  refuses  to  be  satisfied 
without  an  answer  to  that  Why?  he  remains  an 
unconscious  metaphysician,  a  believer  in  final 
causation.  When  we  are  complacently  told  in 
certain  quarters  that  the  Copernican  astronomy 
revolutionized  man's  view  of  his  relation  to  the 
universe,  we  should    remember  that   to  say  the 


l]  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT  ai 

least,  this  is  a  considerable  overstatement  of  the 
case.  In  minds  of  a  materialistic  bias,  it  would 
undoubtedly  have  this  effect ;  but  not  in  those  who 
estimated  man  by  the  claims  of  his  spiritual  nature, 
which  is  as  unaffected  by  the  size  of  his  dwelling- 
place  as  by  the  cubits  of  his  stature.  And  what 
Copernicus  did  for  space,  modern  science  has  done 
for  time.  It  has  dwarfed  the  spiritual  history  of 
man  by  comparison  with  the  infinitude  of  ages, 
during  which  the  material  system  that  he  inhabits 
was  evolved.  But  still  it  is  true  that  spirit  thinks, 
and  wills,  and  loves,  while  matter  only  moves  in 
space  ;  and  man's  judgement  of  their  relative  im- 
portance, therefore,  remains  what  it  was  before. 

In  conclusion,  it  should  be  noticed  that  if  there 
is  truth  in  the  foregoing  remarks,  it  is  absolutely 
unaffected  by  any  theory  which  we  may  adopt,  as 
to  the  ultimate  nature  of  matter  ;  for  it  deals  with 
the  relations  between  matter  and  spirit  as  we  know 
them ;  and  is  as  compatible  with  the  most  realistic 
conceptions  of  matter,  as  with  those  more  sub- 
limated views  of  it,  to  which  some  modern  thinkers 
seem  disposed  to  return. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   RELIGIOUS    INFLUENCE   OF   THE     MATERIAL 
WORLD 

AMONG  the  various  uses  of  matter  to  spirit, 
•**•  which  we  have  mentioned  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  one  of  the  most  striking  throughout  all 
history  has  been  its  religious  use ;  the  part  which 
it  has  played  by  its  mere  aspect,  or  by  obvious 
inference  from  its  aspect,  in  awakening  and  sustain- 
ing religious  ideas. 

Sun-myths,  star-myths,  storm-myths,  myths  of 
the  mountains,  and  the  rivers,  and  the  trees,  lie 
at  the  root,  as  we  now  know  so  well,  of  all  early 
religion.  And  when  with  the  progress  of  reflection 
these  myths  were  criticized  and  sifted,  man  still 
found  in  the  grandeur,  the  harmony,  the  beauty, 
the  marvellous  mechanism,  the  exuberant  life,  the 
exquisite  adaptations  of  the  natural  world,  evidence 
of  the  existence  and  character  of  God  ;  evidence 
which,  whatever  may  be  urged  against  its  value,  has, 
as  a  simple  fact  of  history,  weighed  with  man  in 
every  age.  Nor  has  all  our  modern  enlightenment 
materially  altered  our  case.  We  have  long  out- 
grown mythology,  and  are  intolerant  of  doubtful 


RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  OF  MA  TERIAL  WORLD   33 

logic  ;  but  the  religious  influence  of  external  nature 
is  as  strong  upon  us  as  it  ever  was,  possibly  even 
stronger  than  in  some  bygone  times.  For  the 
strength  of  the  influence  in  question  is  emotional 
rather  than  intellectual,  and  consists  in  a  sense  of 
nearness  or  communion,  of  one  kind  or  another,  with 
the  divine.  And  though  this  admits  of  intellectual 
analysis,  and  can  be  fashioned  into  argument,  it  is 
the  sense  of  experience  in  the  background  which 
gives  the  argument  its  force. 

Now  this  is  a  fact  of  greater  significance  than  is 
commonly  supposed  ;  and  to  estimate  it  duly  we 
must  endeavour  to  form  a  mental  picture  of  the 
scale  on  which  the  influence  in  question  has  obtained. 
Though,  therefore,  it  may  almost  seem  like  offering 
a  brick,  as  an  adequate  specimen  of  a  house,  we  will 
quote  a  few  passages  bearing  on  the  subject :  the 
point  to  notice  in  them  being  the  fact  that  in  all  ages 
of  the  world,  and  under  every  variety  of  culture,  and 
of  creed,  nature — material  nature — the  course  and 
aspect  of  the  outer  world  has  been  an  influence, 
and  a  main  influence,  making  for  religion. 

To  begin  with  what  Egyptologists  assure  us  is 
the  oldest  poem  in  the  world  ;  the  15th  chapter  of 
the  Book  of  the  Dead  contains  a  hymn  to  the  rising 
and  setting  sun : — 

*  Hail  to  thee,  Ra,  the  self-existent.  .  .  .  Glorious 
is  thine  uprising  from  the  horizon.     Both  worlds 


M  THE  RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  [chap. 

are  illumined  by  thy  rays.  All  the  gods  rejoice 
to  see  the  king  of  heaven  ...  all  men  rejoice  to  see 
thee  marching  in  thy  mystery  towards  them  .  .  . 
thee  who  art  given  anew  to  them  every  morning  . . . 
thy  splendour  is  beyond  compare  ...  it  has  all  the 
colours  of  Arabia.  .  .  .  Hail  to  thee  who  makest 
glad  the  lands,  and  all  their  towns  and  temples  with 
the  blessings  of  thy  goodness  .  .  .  thou  who  bringest 
forth  food  and  sweet  nourishment.  .  .  .  Hail  to  thee, 
Ra,  when  thou  returnest  home  in  renewed  beauty, 
crowned,  and  almighty*.' 

The  same  thoughts  are  expanded  in  a  later  hymn, 
which  is  still  not  later  than  the  age  of  Moses : — 

'Praise  to  Amen-Ra: 

the  good  god  beloved : 

giving  life  to  all  animated  things: 

to  all  fair  cattle: 

Maker  of  men,  Creator  of  beasts : 

Lord  of  existences.  Creator  of  fruitful  trees: 

Maker  of  herbs.  Feeder  of  cattle : 

Maker  of  things  below  and  above,  Enlightener  of 

the  earth: 
sailing  in  heaven  in  tranquillity: 

at  whose  pleasure  the  Nile  overflows: 
'  Trans,  from  French  of  Lef^bure. 


ll]  OF   THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  ^ 

Lord  of  mercy  most  loving : 
at  whose  coming  men  live ; 
opener  of  every  eye  : 
proceeding  from  the  firmament : 
causer  of  pleasure  and  light. 

thy  love  pervades  the  earth  : 

maker  of  grass  for  the  cattle : 

fruitful  trees  for  men : 

causing  the  fish  to  live  in  the  river: 

the  birds  to  fill  the  air : 

giving  breath  to  those  in  the  egg; 

feeding  the  bird  that  flies  : 

giving  food  to  the  bird  that  perches : 

to  the  creeping  thing  and  the  flying  thing  equally : 

providing  food  for  the  rats  in  their  holes : 

feeding  the  flying  things  in  every  tree. 

Hail  to  thee  for  all  these  things : 

homage  to  thee  in  all  their  voices: 

Hail  to  thee  say  all  creatures: 

salutation  to  thee  from  every  land : 

to  the  height   of  heaven,  to  the  breadth  of  the 

earth: 
to  the  depths  of  the  sea : 
the  gods  adore  thy  Majesty: 
the  spirits  thou  hast  created  exalt  (thee): 


•6  THE  RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  [chap. 

rejoicing  before  the  feet  of  their  begetter : 

they  cry  out  welcome  to  thee : 

father  of  the  fathers  of  all  gods : 

who  raises  the  heavens  who  fixes  the  earth  ^.' 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  Egypt  to  the  plains  of  India, 
both  in  distance  and  in  race  :  yet  in  the  Vedas,  the 
earliest  literature  of  our  Indo-European  kindred, 
a  similar  note  is  struck.  Their  theology  is  for  the 
most  part  polytheistic,  passing  at  times  into  pan- 
theism ;  but  the  spectacle  of  nature  in  its  varying 
aspects  of  power,  beauty,  and  beneficence,  is  the 
dominating  motive  of  it  all : — 

'  May  the  Earth  and  the  Heaven  hear  us,  the 
Water,  the  Sun  with  the  stars,  the  wide  Atmosphere.' 

'  May  Mitra,  Varu«a,  Aditi,  Ocean,  Earth,  and 
Heaven  gladden  us.' 

'  May  Aditi,  the  mother  of  Mitra  and  the  opu- 
lent Varuwa,  preserve  us  from  every  calamity.' 

'  Aditi  is  the  sky ;  Aditi  is  the  air ;  ...  Aditi  is 
all  the  gods.' 

'  Neither  heavens  nor  atmospheres  nor  earths  have 
equalled  Indra  the  thunderer  in  might.  By  Indra 
the  lights  of  the  sky  have  been  fixed  and  established. 
Those  which  are  established  he  has  not  removed.' 

*  He  has  settled  the  ancient  mountains  by  his 
might ;  he  has  directed  downwards  the  action  of 
the  waters.  He  has  supported  the  earth,  the  uni- 
*  Records  of  the  Past,  ii.  129. 


ii]  OF    THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  ry 

versal  nurse.     By  his  skill  he  has  propped  up  the 
sky  from  falling.* 

*  Dawn  on  us  with  prosperity,  O  Ushas,  daugh- 
ter of  the  sky.  .  .  .  O  luminous  and  bountiful 
goddess.  Ushas  advances  .  .  .  arousing  footed 
creatures,  and  makes  the  birds  fly  aloft.  The 
flying  birds  no  longer  rest  after  thy  dawning, 
O  bringer  of  food.  In  thee,  when  thou  dawnest, 
O  lively  goddess,  is  the  life  and  breath  of  all  crea- 
tures. Ushas,  like  a  dancer,  puts  on  her  gay  attire, 
.  .  .  like  a  fair  girl  adorned  by  her  mother,  .  .  .  like 
one  rising  out  of  the  water  in  which  she  has  been 
bathing.  Ushas  dawning  restores  consciousness ; 
fair  in  her  aspect  she  has  awakened  all  creatures  to 
cheerfulness.' 

*  Mother  of  the  gods,  manifestation  of  Aditi,  fore- 
runner of  the  sacrifice,  mighty  Ushas,  shine  forth ! 
Arise,  bestowing  approbation  on  our  prayer.  .  .  . 
May  Mitra,  Varuwa,  Aditi,  the  Ocean,  the  Earth, 
and  the  Sky,  bestow  upon  us  those  brilliant  and 
excellent  resources  which  the  Dawns  bring  to  the 
man  who  offers  sacrifice  and  praise.' 

*  Thou  createst  light,  O  Surya,  and  illuminatest 
the  whole  firmament.  .  .  .  Thou,  O  Surya,  pene- 
tratest  the  sky,  the  broad  firmament,  measuring  out 
the  days  with  thy  rays,  spying  out  all  creatures. 
Seven  ruddy  mares  bear  thee  onward  in  thy  chariot, 
O  clear-sighted  Surya,  the  god  with  flaming  locks.' 

'  Come   hither,    Maruts  (storm  -  gods)   on   your 


a8  THE  RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  [chap. 

chariots  charged  with  lightning.  .  .  .  Harness  the 
red  mares  to  the  chariots,  harness  the  ruddy  horses 
to  the  chariots.  ...  I  call  hither  this  your  host, 
brilliant  on  chariots,  terrible  and  glorious.  .  .  . 
Through  fear  of  you,  ye  terrible  ones,  the  forests 
even  bend  down,  the  earth  shakes,  and  also  the 
mountain  (cloud).  May  your  water-carriers  come 
here  to-day,  all  the  Maruts  who  stir  up  the  rain.  .  .  . 
When  you  have  come  forth,  O  Maruts,  the  waters 
gush,  the  forests  go  asunder  ^.' 

'  Now  for  the  greatness  of  the  chariot  of  Vita ! 
Its  roar  goes  crashing  and  thundering.  It  moves 
touching  the  sky,  and  creating  red  sheens,  or  it  goes 
scattering  the  dust  of  the  earth.  .  .  . 

'  When  he  moves  on  his  paths  along  the  sky,  he 
rests  not  even  a  single  day  ;  the  friend  of  the  waters, 
the  first-bom,  the  holy,  where  was  he  born,  whence 
did  he  spring  ? 

'  The  breath  of  the  gods,  the  germ  of  the  world, 
that  god  moves  wherever  he  listeth  ;  his  roars 
indeed  are  heard,  not  his  form — let  us  offer  sacrifice 
to  that  Vata  ^  I ' 

When  we  turn  to  the  kindred,  but  far  more 
ethical,  religion  of  the  Avesta,  the  distinction  be- 
tween creator  and  creature  is  more  clearly  drawn ; 
but  the  recognition  of  the  former,  in  and  by  means 
of  the  latter,  is  none  the  less  apparent : — 

*  Muir's  Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  v. 

*  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  xxxii.  449. 


Il]  OF   THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  ay 

•  I  desire  to  approach  Ahura  and  Mithra  with  my 
praise,  the  lofty,  eternal,  and  the  holy  two  ;  and 
I  desire  to  approach  the  stars,  moon,  and  sun  .  .  . 
with  my  praise  .  .  .  and  I  desire  to  approach  all  the 
mountains  with  my  praise,  glorious  with  sanctity  as 
they  are,  and  with  abundant  glory. 

'  And  I  offer  ...  to  Ahura  and  Mithra, .  .  .  the 
holy  two,  and  to  the  stars  which  are  the  creatures 
of  Spe/rta  Mainyu,  .  .  .  and  to  the  Moon  which 
contains  the  seed  of  cattle  in  its  beams,  and  to  the 
resplendent  Sun  of  the  fleet  horses  .  .  .  and  to  these 
places,  districts,  pastures,  and  abodes  with  their 
springs  of  water,  and  to  the  waters  and  the  lands, 
and  the  plants,  and  to  this  earth  and  yon  heaven, 
and  to  the  holy  wind,  and  to  the  stars,  and  the 
moon,  even  to  the  stars  without  beginning  (to  their 
course),  the  self-appointed,  and  to  all  the  holy 
creatures  of  Spewta  Mainyu. 

*  We  worship  thee,  the  Fire,  O  Ahura  Mazda's 
son  .  .  .  and  we  worship  the  good  and  best  waters 
Mazda-made,  holy,  all  the  waters  Mazda-made  and 
holy,  and  all  the  plants  which  Mazda  made,  and 
which  are  holy. 

'  Thus  do  we  worship  Ahura  Mazda,  who  made 
the  Kine  .  .  .  and  the  waters,  and  the  wholesome 
plants,  the  stars,  and  the  earth,  and  all  .  .  .  objects 
that  are  good.  Yea,  we  worship  Him  for  His  Sove- 
reign Power  and  His  greatness,  beneficent  .  .  .  and 
we  worship  this  earth  that  bears  us,  together  with 


go  THE  RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  [chap. 

Thy  wives,  O  Ahura  Mazda !  .  .  .  O  ye  waters !  now 
we  worship  you,  you  that  are  showered  down,  and 
you  that  stand  in  pools  and  vats,  ...  ye  female 
Ahuras  of  Ahura,  you  that  serve  us  in  helpful  ways, 
well  forded  and  full-flowing,  and  effective  for  the 
bathings. 

'And  we  sacrifice  to  the  fountains  of  the 
waters,  and  to  the  fordings  of  the  rivers,  to  the  fork- 
ings  of  the  highways,  and  to  the  meetings  of  the 
roads. 

*  And  we  sacrifice  to  the  hills  that  run  with  tor- 
rents, and  the  lakes  that  brim  with  waters,  and  to 
the  corn  that  fills  the  corn-fields  ;  and  we  sacrifice 
to  both  the  protector  and  the  Creator,  to  both 
Zarathujtra  and  the  Lord. 

*  And  we  sacrifice  to  both  earth  and  heaven,  and 
to  the  stormy  wind  that  Mazda  made,  and  to  the 
peak  of  high  Haraiti,  and  to  the  land,  and  all  things 
good  ^' 

Passing  from  Persia  to  Palestine,  we  enter  a  still 
purer  religious  atmosphere ;  but  the  clear  mono- 
theism and  high  morality  of  the  later  Hebrews  only 
enhance  the  prominence  of  nature  in  their  devotional 
literature : — 

'  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the 
firmament  sheweth  His  handiwork.' 

'  He  telleth  the  number  of  the  stars,  and  calletli 
them  all  by  their  names.' 

*  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  xxxi. 


Ill  OF  THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  31 

*  The  sea  is  His,  and  He  made  it,  and  His  hands 
prepared  the  dry  land.' 

'  Who  in  His  strength  setteth  fast  the  mountains, 
and  is  girded  about  with  power.' 

*  He  gathereth  the  waters  of  the  sea  together  as 
it  were  upon  an  heap,  and  layeth  up  the  deep  as  in 
a  treasure  house.' 

*  He  bringeth  forth  the  clouds  from  the  ends  of 
the  world ;  and  sendeth  forth  lightnings  with  the 
rain,  bringing  the  winds  out  of  His  treasuries.' 

*  It  is  the  Lord  that  commandeth  the  waters ;  it 
is  the  glorious  God  that  maketh  the  thunder.  It  is 
the  Lord  that  ruleth  the  sea,  the  voice  of  the  Lord 
is  mighty  in  operation,  the  voice  of  the  Lord  is 
a  glorious  voice.' 

'He  rode  upon  the  cherubims  and  did  fly:  He 
came  flying  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind.* 

'He  made  darkness  His  secret  place;  His 
pavilion  round  about  Him  with  dark  waters  and 
thick  clouds  to  cover  Him.' 

'He  giveth  snow  like  wool,  and  scattereth  the 
hoar-frost  like  ashes ;  He  casteth  forth  His  ice 
like  morsels;  who  is  able  to  abide  His  frost? 
He  sendeth  out  His  word  and  melteth  them, 
He  bloweth  with  His  wind,  and  the  waters 
flow.' 

*  Praise  Him,  sun  and  moon,  praise  Him,  all  ye 
stars  and  light. . . .  Fire  and  hail,  snow  and  vapours, 
wind  and  storm,  fulfilling  His  word  ;  mountains  and 


39  THE  RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE  [chap. 

all  hills ;  fruitful  trees  and  all  cedars,  beasts  and  all 
cattle  ;  worms  and  feathered  fowls.' 

*  Thou  deckest  Thyself  with  light  as  it  were  with 
a  garment,  and  spreadest  out  the  heavens  like  a 
curtain.* 

'Thy  way  is  in  the  sea,  and  Thy  paths  in  the 
great  waters,  and  Thy  footsteps  are  not  known.' 

'  Thou  that  makest  the  outgoings  of  the  morning 
and  evening  to  praise  Thee  ^.' 

Passing  on  from  Hebrew  to  Greek  and  Roman 
literature,  we  return  to  pantheistic  and  polytheistic 
modes  of  thought,  but  the  influence  of  nature  is 
evident  in  both. 

'  Zeus  is  the  air,  and  Zeus  the  earth  and  heaven, 
And  all  things ;   and  what  else  is  over  all  ^' 
says  Aeschylus. 

*  Men  have  inferred,'  says  Virgil,  *  from  the  in- 
stincts of  the  bees,  that  they  partake  of  the  divine 
mind,  and  breath  of  heaven  :  * — 

'for  God  pervades  the  whole 
Earth  and  the  spacious  sea,  and  heaven  profound^.' 

And  again — 

*An  inward  spirit  feeds  earth,  heaven,  and  sea, 

The  shining  moon,  and  giant  stars ;   a  mind 

Pervades  their  limbs,  and   moves   the   mighty 

mass  *.' 

'  The  Psalms.  *  Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  v. 

'  Virgil,  Georg.  iv.  220.  *  Id.  Aeneid,  vi.  724. 


Il]  OF   THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  83 

And  Lucan,  again — 

'  Whate'er  thou  seest,  where'er  thou  goest  is  Jove.* 

Such  pantheistic  passages  might  easily  be  multi- 
plied, while  those  of  a  more  polytheistic  tone  are 
too  numerous  to  admit  of  selection.  A  single 
typical  instance  must  suffice  —  the  famous  apo- 
strophe of  Prometheus : — 

*  O  holy  heaven,  and  ye  winged  winds 
And  springs  of  waters,  and  unnumbered  smiles 
Of  ocean  waves ;   and  thee  all-mother  earth, 
And  thee  all -seeing  circle  of  the  sun,  I  call 
To  witness  what  I  suffer*.' 

In  an  artificial  age  such  language  might  be  called 
merely  poetical,  in  the  sense  of  meaningless  ;  but 
there  is  no  question  that  for  the  Greek  it  was  full 
of  serious  reality. 

But  after  all,  as  Bacon  remarks,  ^Ethnicis  moralis 
philosophia  vice  theologiae  eraf, — the  moral  philo- 
sophers were  the  religious  teachers  of  pagan 
antiquity. 

And  though  it  is  difficult,  of  course,  to  generalize 
on  so  wide  a  subject  as  Greek  philosophy,  one  may 
safely  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  in  all  its  forms  and 
stages,  with  the  exception  of  one  somewhat  sub- 
ordinate school,  it  was  characterized  by  the  recog- 
nition of  reason  in  nature.  The  early  thinkers  with 
their  pregnant  sayings — *  All  things  are  full  of 
*  Aesch.  Prom.  Vinct.  88. 
D 


34  THE  RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  [chap. 

gods' — 'All  was  chaos  till  mind  arranged  it' — 
'  Thought  and  being  are  one ' ;  Socrates,  Plato,  and 
Aristotle,  with  their  insistence  on  rational  causa- 
tion ;  the  Stoics  and  Neo-platonists,  with  their 
diverse  forms  of  pantheism,  were  alike  influenced 
by  the  picture  of  the  material  world,  its  order  and 
its  harmony,  its  beauty  and  its  use,  as  suggestive 
of  divine  guidance,  either  from  above  or  from 
within.  Plato  viewed  the  world,  and  especially  its 
beauty,  as  the  manifestation  of  divine  ideas  that 
were  more  real  than  itself;  Aristotle  tended  to 
view  it  as  the  realization  of  divine  ideas,  that 
without  material  embodiment  would  have  been 
abstract  and  incomplete.  The  one  doctrine  led 
to  the  transcendent  God  of  the  Neo-platonists,  the 
other  to  the  immanent  God  of  the  Stoics  ;  but  for 
both  schools  alike,  though  in  different  ways,  matter 
was  religiously  significant. 

•The  thoughtful  contemplation  of  nature,*  says 
Cicero,  *is  food  to  our  minds.  We  are  ennobled 
and  uplifted  above  human  affairs,  and  learn  to  look 
down  on  our  own  littleness,  by  thinking  on  the 
grandeur  of  the  heavens  above  ^.' 

•  For  what  else  is  nature  ? '  asks  Seneca,  *  but 
God  and  Divine  reason,  immanent  in  the  world  and 
all  its  parts  2.'  .  .  .  '  What  is  God  ?  The  sum  total 
of  all  thou  seest,  and  of  all  thou  canst  not  see  ^' 

*  Cic.  De  Nat.  Dear.  ii.  41.  »  Sen.  Nat.  Qu.  ii.  45. 

»  Id.  Prol.  13. 


ll]  OF   THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  35 

Christianity,  with  its  correlative  doctrines  of  the 
Trinity  and  the  Incarnation,  laid  equal  stress  both 
on  the  transcendence  and  immanence  of  God,  or  in 
less  technical  terms  upon  His  supremacy  and  His 
omnipresence,  and  was  enabled  therefore  to  appro- 
priate and  utilize  both  Neo-platonic  and  Stoic 
thought,  but  with  a  tenderer  appreciation  of  nature 
that  is  distinctively  its  own.  Origen,  the  first 
systematic  teacher  of  theology,  is  described  to  us 
as  beginning  his  instructions  with  the  *  high  and 
holy  and  most  beautiful '  study  of  *  the  sacred 
economy  of  the  universe.' '  And  modern  readers, 
whose  notion  of  the  Christian  Fathers  is  often 
merely  of  ponderous  folios  upon  dusty  shelves, 
would  be  surprised  at  their  loving  interest  in  the 
sights  and  sounds  of  the  natural  world. 

'  The  wider  our  contemplation  of  creation,*  says 
St.  Cyril,  *  the  grander  is  our  conception  of  God  *.' 

'  Earth,*  says  St.  Basil, — '  Earth,  air,  sky,  water, 
day,  night,  all  things  visible,  remind  us  who  is  our 
benefactor  ^.'  *  The  more  profoundly  we  penetrate 
the  laws  on  which  the  universe  is  founded  and 
sustained,  the  more  do  we  behold  the  glory  of  the 
Lord  3.' 

And  again — 

*  If  ever  on  a  bright  night,  while  gazing  at  the 
stars  in  all  their  beauty,  you  have  thought  of  the 

*  Cyril  Jems.  Cat.  ix,  2.  *  Basil,  Hex.  iii.  10. 

*  Id.  In  Ps.  xxxiii. 

D  3 


36  THE   RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  [chap. 

Creator  of  all  things  ;  if  you  have  asked  yourself 
who  it  is  that  has  bespangled  heaven  with  such 
flowers,  and  endowed  all  things  with  usefulness 
even  greater  than  their  beauty  ;  if  ever  in  the  day- 
time you  have  studied  the  wonders  of  the  light  and 
raised  yourself  by  things  visible  to  the  invisible 
Being,  then  you  are  a  fit  auditor  (of  Christian 
truth)  V 

Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Basil's  brother  and  fellow- 
follower  of  Origen,  has  similar  thoughts  : — 

*  Look  only,'  he  says, '  at  an  ear  of  corn,  at  the 
budding  of  a  plant,  at  a  bunch  of  ripe  grapes,  at 
the  beauty  in  fruit  and  flower  of  the  early  autumn ; 
at  the  mountains,  their  bases  green  with  grass 
which  no  human  hand  has  sown,  while  their 
summits  cleave  the  azure  of  the  sky ;  at  the 
springs  that  issue  from  their  swelling  slopes  like 
fruitful  breasts,  to  run  in  rivers  through  the  glens  ; 
at  the  sea  that  receives  all  waters,  yet  remains 
within  its  bounds ;  its  waves,  stayed  by  the  shore- 
side,  which  they  can  never  pass  beyond.  Look  at 
these  and  such-like  sights,  and  can  the  eye  of  reason 
fail  to  read  in  them  lessons  of  eternal  truth ^?* 

For  *  Matter  had  its  origin  in  the  uncreated  love- 
liness, and  throughout  the  whole  range  of  matter 
there    are    echoes    of   spiritual    beauty,    through 

*  Basil,  Hex.  vi.  i.  *  Greg.  Nyss.  De  mort.  inf. 


ll]  OF  THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  37 

which  we  may  be  led  to  their  immaterial  arche- 
types V 

Nor  is  it  only  the  Greek  Fathers  who  say  things 
like  this : — 

*  Who  can  look  on  nature,'  asks  St.  Hilary,  *  and 
not  see  God  *  ? ' 

*  Every    aspect    and    process    of   nature,*    says 

Augustine,  '  proclaims   its   Creator ;   with  diverse 
moods  and  changes  like  a  variety  of  tongues  *.' 
And  again,  Gregory  the  Great : — 

•If  we  look  attentively  enough  at  outward, 
material  things,  we  are  recalled  by  them  to  inward, 
spiritual  things.  For  the  wonders  of  the  visible 
creation  are  the  footprints  of  our  Creator  ;  Him- 
self as  yet  we  cannot  see,  but  we  are  on  the  road 
that  leads  to  vision,  when  we  admire  Him  in 
the  things  that  He  has  made.  And  so  we  call 
created  things  His  footprints,  since  they  are  made 
by  Him  and  guide  us  to  Himself*.* 

Such  sentences  might  indeed  be  culled  from 
almost  every  patristic  writer,  and  are  frequently 
echoed  even  in  the  austere  pages  of  the  school- 
men, while  we  gain  glimpses  of  the  same  feeling 
on  the  dainty  pages  of  illuminated  books,  in  the 
choice  of  sites  for  monastic  houses  and  hermits' 
homes  of  prayer,  in  the  countless  legends  of  tender 

*  Dion.  Areop.  Cel.  Hier.  c.  ii.  *  Hilary,  In  Ps.  lii. 

•  Aug.  Lib.  Ard,  iiL  7a        *  Greg.  Mag.  Moral,  xxvi.  c  xii. 


38  THE  RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  [chap. 

sympathy  between  the  animals  and  holy  men. 
The  Celtic  saints  in  especial  are  full  of  the  poetry 
of  nature,  but  perhaps  its  best  expression  is  in  the 
famous  hymn  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi : — 

'  Praised  be  my  Lord  God  with  all  His  creatures, 
and  specially  our  brother  the  sun,  who  brings  us 
the  day,  and  who  brings  us  the  light  ;  fair  is  he 
and  shines  with  a  very  great  splendour :  O  Lord, 
he  signifies  to  us  Thee  I 

*  Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister  the  moon, 
and  for  the  stars,  the  which  He  has  set  clear  and 
lovely  in  heaven. 

'Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  brother  the  wind, 
and  for  air  and  cloud,  calms  and  all  weather  by 
the  which  Thou  upholdest  life  in  all  creatures. 

'  Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister  water,  who  is 
very  serviceable  unto  us,  and  humble  and  precious 
and  clean. 

*  Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  brother  fire,  through 
whom  Thou  givest  us  light  in  the  darkness ;  and  he 
is  bright  and  pleasant  and  very  mighty  and  strong. 

'  Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  mother  the  earth, 
the  which  doth  sustain  us  and  keep  us,  and  bringeth 
forth  divers  fruits  and  flowers  of  many  colours,  and 
grass  *.* 

When    we    pass    to   the    Renaissance   and   the 
Reformation  with  their  multitude  of  writers,  selec- 
*  Qu.  fir.  Sabatier,  Life  of  St.  Francis,  p.  306. 


Il]  OF  THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  39 

tive  quotation  from  the  mass  of  material  becomes 
almost  impossible.  Men  returned  to  the  study  of 
nature  at  first  hand  in  every  department  of  life, 
philosophers,  poets,  preachers,  artists,  all  alike ; 
and  though  of  course  the  effect  on  some  was 
renewed  materialism,  countless  others  recognized 
the  spirituality  of  matter.  This  was  the  case, 
for  instance,  with  many  of  the  Italian  natural 
philosophers,  the  men  who  practically  inaugurated 
that  renewed  study  of  nature  of  which  Bacon  was 
content  to  talk.  The  poetical  pantheism  of 
Giordano  Bruno  is  well  known  ;  but  here  is  a  more 
theistic  expression  of  kindred  thoughts  from  his  con- 
temporary Campanella,  who  was  much  impressed  by 
the  discovery  of  magnetic  attraction,  and  himself  the 
first  to  recognize  the  sexes  in  plants : — 

'  All  things,'  he  says,  '  feel,  or  the  world  would 
be  a  chaos.  For  fire  would  not  aspire,  nor  stones 
gravitate,  nor  waters  seek  the  sea,  unless  they 
knew  that  their  continuance  depended  on  leaving 
their  opposite  to  find  their  like.  .  .  .  For  God 
who  is  the  first  power,  first  wisdom,  and  first 
love,  has  bestowed  upon  all  things  the  power  of 
existence,  and  with  it  such  wisdom  and  such  love 
as  shall  suffice  to  continue  their  existence,  for  the 
time  that  His  ruling  providence  wills  them  to 
be.  .  .  .  God  said,  let  all  things  feel,  some  more 
some  less,  as  they  have  more  or  less  necessity  to 


40  THE  RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  [chap. 

imitate  My  being ;  and  let  them  love  to  live  in 
that  element  which  they  know  to  be  good  for 
them,  lest  My  creation  come  to  naught.  Sky  and 
stars  are  endowed  with  keenest  sensibility  ;  and  we 
may  well  suppose  that  they  express  their  mutual 
thoughts  to  one  another  by  the  interchange  of  light, 
and  that  their  sensibiHty  is  full  of  pleasure  ^' 

Mere  fantastic  poetry  this  may  seem  to  some, 
but  it  has  modern  affinities  among  philosophers  as 
well  as  poets. 

Then  in  literature  we  find  Petrarch,  who  is  the 
first  to  show  the  modern  sense  of  scenery,  and 
whose  letters  are  full  of  the  love  of  it,  speaking  of 
the  spiritual  thoughts  which  it  inspires : — 

'This  little  spot  under  the  rocks,  in  the  midst 
of  the  waters,  is  more  suited  than  any  other  to 
inspire  profound  thoughts  by  which  the  most  idle 
minds  may  feel  themselves  lifted  to  lofty  con- 
templation. .  .  .  How  often  has  night  found  me 
still  wandering  in  the  fields !  How  often  have 
I  risen  in  the  silence  of  a  summer  night  to  offer  up 
my  prayers  and  midnight  orisons  to  Christ,  and 
then  to  steal  forth  alone  ...  to  wander  by  the 
light  of  the  moon  over  the  fields  and  mountains  ^ ! ' 

While  the  same  note  is  continually  struck  by  the 
great  painters,  who  in  those  delicate  backgrounds, 

*  Qu.  fr.  Hallatn,  Lit.  Eur.  ii.  374. 

•  Trans,  in  Century  Rev.  liv.  4. 


n]  OF  THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  41 

which  were  the  first  beginnings  of  all  our  modern 
landscape  art,  delight  to  associate  the  aspects  of 
nature,  its  smiling  pastures,  and  its  storm-rent 
rocks,  with  all  the  varying  phases  of  spiritual  life. 

Protestant  theology  stands  in  sharp  contrast 
with  the  other  movements  of  the  Renaissance.  It 
is  the  more  instructive  therefore  to  notice  that  in 
this  point  they  are  at  one.  Here  is  a  passage  from 
the  German  mystic,  Suso : — 

*  Oh,  how  cloudlessly  and  cheerfully  the  beautiful 
sun  rises  in  the  summer  season,  and  how  diligently 
it  gives  growth  and  blessings  to  the  s<5il ;  how  the 
leaves  and  the  grass  come  forth  ;  how  the  beau- 
tiful flowers  smile ;  how  the  forest,  and  the  heath, 
and  the  meadows  resound  with  the  sweet  songs  of 
the  nightingale  and  other  small  birds ;  how  all  the 
animals  which  were  shut  up  during  the  hard  winter 
come  forth  and  enjoy  themselves  and  go  in  pairs; 
how,  in  humanity,  young  and  old  manifest  their 
joy  in  merry  and  gladsome  utterances  1  O  tender 
God !  if  Thou  art  so  loving  in  Thy  creatures,  how 
fair  and  lovely  must  Thou  be  in  Thyself !  Look 
further,  I  pray  you,  and  behold  the  four  elements, 
— earth,  water,  air,  and  fire, — and  all  the  wonder- 
ful things  in  them ;  the  variety  and  diversity  of 
men,  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  and  the  wonders  of  the 
deep,  all  of  which  cry  aloud  and  proclaim  the 
praise  and  honour  of  the  boundless  and  infinite 


4a  THE  RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  [chap. 

nature  of  God!  O  Lord,  who  preserves  all  this? 
Who  feeds  it?  Thou  takest  care  of  all,  each  in  its 
own  way,  great  and  small,  rich  and  poor.  Thou, 
God !  Thou  doest  it !  Thou,  God,  art  indeed  God^l' 

Luther,  again,  was  notorious  for  his  religious 
love  of  nature.  But  it  is  not  so  well  known  that 
Zwingli  felt  the  same : — 

•From  God,'  he  says,  *as  from  a  fountain,  and 
if  I  may  use  the  expression,  a  first  material,  all 
things  arise  into  being.  By  God's  power  all  things 
exist,  live,  and  operate ;  even  in  Him  who  is 
everywhere  present ;  and  after  His  pattern  who 
is  the  essence,  the  existence,  the  life  of  the  uni- 
verse. Nor  is  man  alone  of  divine  origin ;  but  all 
creatures,  though  some  are  nobler  and  more  august 
than  others.  Yet  all  alike  are  from  God  and  in 
God,  and  in  proportion  to  their  nobility  they 
express  more  of  the  divine  power  and  glory.  .  .  . 
We  recognize  in  things  inanimate,  not  less  than  in 
man,  the  presence  of  the  divine  power  by  which 
they  exist,  and  live,  and  move.  God  is  in  the  stars ; 
and  inasmuch  as  the  stars  are  from  Him  and  in 
Him,  they  have  no  essence  or  power  or  movement 
of  their  own  ;  it  is  all  God's,  and  they  are  merely 
the  instruments  through  which  the  present  power  of 
God  acts.  For  for  this  cause  He  called  creatures 
into  being,  that  man,  from  the  contemplation  of 

*  Qu.  fir.  Hagenbach,  Hist,  of  Doct.E.  T.  ii.  230. 


Ill  OF   THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  43 

their  mutual  uses,  might  learn  to  recognize  God's 
active  presence  everywhere,  and  especially  in  him- 
self, when  he  saw  it  in  all  things  else  around  ^.' 

Catholic  theology,  again,  is  fundamentally  op- 
posed on  many  points  to  Protestant.  Yet  here 
they  too  are  agreed.  The  following  passage  from 
Pension  is  thoroughly  typical  of  the  great  Catholic 
writers  of  the  seventeenth  century.  But  it  might 
almost  be  mistaken  for  a  continuation  of  the  above. 

*  I  see  God  in  everything ;  or  rather,  I  see  every- 
thing in  God.  .  .  .  All  that  exists,  exists  only  by  the 
communication  of  God's  infinite  being.  All  that 
has  intelligence,  has  it  only  by  derivation  from  His 
sovereign  reason,  and  all  that  acts,  acts  only  from 
the  impulse  of  His  supreme  activity.  It  is  He  who 
does  all  in  all ;  it  is  He  who,  at  each  instant  of 
our  life,  is  the  beating  of  our  heart,  the  movement 
of  our  limbs,  the  light  of  our  eyes,  the  intelligence  of 
our  spirit,  the  soul  of  our  soul.  All  that  is  in  us, 
life,  action,  thought,  will,  is  the  product  of  His 
eternal  power,  and  life,  and  thought,  and  will  ^.' 

To  these  we  will  add  one  English  voice  from  the 
eighteenth  century,  unlikeliest  of  times !  William 
Law,  who  in  his  later  writings  was  so  much  in- 
fluenced by  Jacob  Boehme, — himself  an  important 

*  Zwingli,  De  provident i a. 

*  F^ndon,  Exist,  de  Dieu,  ii.  c  iv ;  Necess.  de  con.  Dieu, 

XL  18. 


44  THE   REUGIOUS   INFLUENCE  [cHAP. 

link  in  the  tradition  we  are  tracing, — has  many 
passages  to  the  following  effect: — 

'  Look  at  all  nature,  through  all  its  height  and 
depth,  in  all  its  variety  of  working  powers,  it  is 
what  it  is  for  this  only  end,  that  the  hidden  riches, 
the  invisible  powers,  blessings,  glory,  and  love  of 
the  unsearchable  God,  may  become  visible,  sensible, 
and  manifest  in  it  and  by  it. 

'  Look  at  all  the  variety  of  creatures ;  they  are 
what  they  are  for  this  only  end,  that  in  their 
infinite  variety,  degrees,  and  capacities,  they  may 
be  as  so  many  speaking  figures,  living  forms  of  the 
manifold  riches  and  powers  of  nature,  as  so  many 
sounds  and  voices,  preachers  and  trumpets,  giving 
glory  and  praise  and  thanksgiving  to  that  Deity  of 
love,  which  gives  life  to  all  nature  and  creature. 

*  For  every  creature  of  unfallen  nature,  call  it  by 
what  name  you  will,  has  its  form,  and  power,  and 
state,  and  place  in  nature,  for  no  other  end  but  to 
open  and  enjoy,  to  manifest  and  rejoice  in  some 
share  of  the  love,  and  happiness,  and  goodness  of 
the  Deity,  as  springing  forth  in  the  boundless 
height  and  depth  of  nature  \* 

To  turn,  once  more,  from  theology  to  literature : 
Rousseau  and  Goethe  typically  exemplify  the  kind 
of  men  whose  religious  conceptions,  though  of  the 
vaguest,  are  profoundly  influenced  by  nature ;  but 

'  Law,  Spirit  of  Love ^  iL 


n]  OF   THE  MATERIAL    IVORLD  45 

the  best,  as  being  the  extreme  instances  of  this 
class  that  can  possibly  be  quoted  for  our  purpose, 
are  Byron  and  Shelley  ;  men  who  but  for  nature 
might  have  been  wholly  irreligious,  and  who  there- 
fore exhibit  nature's  influence  in  its  simplest  form, 
as  being  exercised  on  minds  which  not  only  brought 
no  religious  element  to  its  interpretation,  but  by  their 
rejection  of  all  positive  religion  were  biassed  in  an 
opposite  direction.  Yet  they  are  full  of  the  mystic 
emotion  which  natural  sights  and  sounds  inspire. 

Take  the  opening  passage,  for  instance,  of  Shelley's 
A  las  tor: — 

'  Earth,  ocean,  air,  beloved  brotherhood  1 
If  our  great  mother  has  imbued  my  soul 
With  aught  of  natural  piety  to  feel 
Your  love,  and  recompense  the  boon  with  mine ; 
If  dewy  morn,  and  odorous  noon,  and  even, 
With  sunset  and  its  gorgeous  ministers. 
And  solemn  midnight's  tingling  silentness ; 
If  autumn's  hollow  sighs  in  the  sere  wood. 
And  winter  robing  with  pure  snow  and  crowns 
Of  starry  ice  the  gray  grass  and  bare  boughs  ; 
If  spring's  voluptuous  pantings,  when  she  breathes 
Her  first  sweet  kisses,  have  been  dear  to  me ; 
If  no  bright  bird,  insect,  or  gentle  beast 
I  consciously  have  injured,  but  still  loved 
And  cherished  these  my  kindred ; — then  forgive 
This  boast,  beloved  brethren,  and  withdraw 
No  portion  of  your  wonted  favour  now ! 


46  THE  RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  [chap. 

Mother  of  this  unfathomable  world! 
Favour  my  solemn  song,  for  I  have  loved 
Thee  ever,  and  thee  only^.' 

Or  again,  Byron's  lines  in  Childe  Harold: — 

'  To  sit  on  rocks,  to  muse  o'er  flood  and  fell, 
To  slowly  trace  the  forest's  shady  scene, 
Where  things  that  own  not  man's  dominion  dwell, 
And  mortal  foot  hath  ne'er,  or  rarely  been; 
To  climb  the  trackless  mountain  all  unseen, 
With  the  wild  flock  that  never  needs  a  fold ; 
Alone  o'er  steeps  and  foaming  falls  to  lean ; 
This  is  not  solitude ;  'tis  but  to  hold 
Converse  with  nature's  charms,  and  view  her  stores 
unroll'dV 

*  Then  stirs  the  feeling  infinite,  so  felt 
In  solitude,  where  we  are  least  alone  ; 
A  truth,  which  through  our  being  then  doth  melt, 
And  purifies  from  self:   it  is  a  tone, 
The  soul  and  source  of  music,  which  makes  known 
Eternal  harmony  ^' 

*I  love  not  man  the  less,  but  nature  more. 
From  these  our  interviews,  in  which  I  steal 
From  all  I  may  be,  or  have  been  before, 
To  mingle  with  the  universe,  and  feel 
What  I  can  ne'er  express,  yet  cannot  all  conceal  *.* 

*  Shelley,  Alastor,  '  Byron,  Childe  Harold,  ii.  25. 

"  lb.  iii.  90.  *  lb.  iv.  178. 


n]  OF   THE  MATERIAL    WORLD  47 

But  our  quotations  must,  by  this  time,  have 
grown  tedious,  so  with  one  passage  from  Words- 
worth we  will  conclude — the  well-known  passage 
in  the  lines  on  Tintern,  which  may  be  called  the 
locus  classictis  upon  the  subject : — 

'  I  have  felt 
A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts  ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man : 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought. 
And  rolls  through  all  things.  Therefore  am  I  still 
A  lover  of  the  meadows  and  the  woods, 
And  mountains;  and  of  all  that  we  behold 
From  this  green  earth  ;  of  all  the  mighty  world 
Of  eye  and  ear, — both  what  they  half  create. 
And  what  perceive ;  well  pleased  to  recognize 
In  nature  and  the  language  of  the  sense. 
The  anchor  of  my  purest  thoughts,  the  nurse, 
The  guide,  the  guardian  of  my  heart,  and  soul 
Of  all  my  moral  being  ^' 

Now  it  will  be  noticed  that  the  above  quotations 
range  through  the  whole  of  recorded  history  ;  they 
might  have  been  indefinitely  multiplied  ;  and  every 
*  Wordsworth,  Lines  on  Tintem  Abbey. 


48   RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE  OF  MATERIAL  WORLD 

one  of  them  expresses,  not  the  experience  of  an 
individual,  but  of  endless  generations  of  men ; 
psalmists,  poets,  and  even  philosophers  only- 
becoming  popular,  as  they  utter  the  innermost 
feelings  of  humanity  at  large.  Here  then  we  have 
evidence  that  nature — the  material  world  with  its 
sights  and  sounds — has  exerted,  throughout  all 
ages,  a  profound  religious  influence  on  the  thoughts 
and  affections  of  men.  There  are  famous  excep- 
tions, of  course,  like  Lucretius ;  but  they  are 
critical  and  reflective  rather  than  spontaneous ;  and 
by  the  fact  that  they  are  recognized  as  excep- 
tions— paradoxical  opponents  of  habitual  opinion 
— they  conduce,  if  anything,  to  prove  the  rule. 
It  should  further  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
influence  in  question  is  independent  of  any  par- 
ticular theological  interpretation  ;  co-existing  alike 
with  monotheism,  polytheism,  pantheism — a  mystic 
emotion,  more  fundamental  than  the  varieties  of 
creed — a  primary,  permanent,  worldwide  agent,  in 
the  education  of  the  human  soul.  Thus  matter 
has,  as  a  fact,  from  the  very  dawn  of  human 
history,  ministered  to  the  religious  development 
of  spirit ;  and  when  we  remember  what  religion  is, 
and  all  that  it  has  done  for  man,  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  among  all  the  ministries  of  matter,  this, 
its  service  to  religion,  is  beyond  comparison  the 
chief. 


CHAPTER    III 

DIVINE    IMMANENCE   IN   NATURE 

WE  have  seen,  in  the  foregoing  survey,  that  the 
religious  influence  of  external  nature  is  a  fact 
of  experience ;  nothing  rare  or  exceptional,  but  an 
ordinary  fact  of  normal  human  experience.  And 
as  the  significance  of  this  fact  depends  upon  its 
magnitude, — its  agelong  existence  and  world-wide 
extent, — it  is  very  important  to  bear  in  mind  the 
dbtinction  between  the  experience  itself  and  its 
interpretations.  For  its  interpretations  being  in- 
evitably coloured  by  the  spirit  of  their  age,  have 
varied  with  every  variety  of  culture  and  of  creed. 
And  as  men  easily  tend  to  confuse  the  original 
impression  with  the  philosophic  or  theological 
belief  into  which  they  instinctively  translate  it, 
they  often  appear  to  be  going  further  than  their 
premisses  allow,  and  so  bring  the  whole  process 
into  disrepute.  One  man,  for  example,  claims  to  see 
in  nature  a  benevolent  creator  ;  another  a  dualism  ; 
another  a  plurality  of  spiritual  beings ;  another  a 

B 


so  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE       [chap. 

universally  diffused  spirit.  But  all  these  are  inter- 
pretations of  an  immediate  experience  in  the  light 
of  a  general  belief;  and  are  liable  to  obscure,  by 
their  contradictory  character,  the  universality  of 
the  experience  in  question.  Still,  beneath  them 
all  that  experience  remains  ;  a  sense,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  nature,  of  contact  with  something  spiritual ; 
a  sense  of  affinity,  or  kinship,  as  the  Neo-platonists 
described  it,  with  the  material  world,  implying 
spirituality  within  or  behind  it.  The  feeling  is 
hard  to  describe  in  more  definite  terms,  since  even 
the  emotions  that  it  arouses  are  very  different  in 
different  minds ;  but  though  undefinable  it  is  in- 
tense, and,  as  we  have  seen,  unquestionably  normal 
to  humanity. 

Now  unless  this  experience  can  be  discredited, 
it  must  be  recognized  as  weighty  evidence  of  a 
spiritual  reality  behind  material  things.  And  it 
can  only  be  discredited  either  by  proof  that  it  is 
an  illusion,  or  by  proof  that  the  faculties  which  feel 
it  are  unworthy  of  trust. 

To  say  that  it  is  an  illusion  is  of  course  equivalent 
to  saying  that  it  arises  from  an  instinctive  inference, 
which  the  growth  of  knowledge  has  enabled  us  to 
correct.  The  world  as  scientifically  understood  in 
the  present  day,  is  very  different  from  the  world  as 
sensibly  perceived ;  and  the  former  is  in  conse- 
quence often  supposed  to  be  more  real  than  the 
latter — atoms,  energy,  and  ether, — that  is  to  say, 


Hi]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE  51 

more  real  than  the  h'ghts  and  shadows  which  their 
movements  cast.  Hence  the  emotions,  it  is  argued, 
which  sensible  phenomena  arouse  have  no  adequate 
counterpart  in  fact ;  and  as  being  founded  on  unreal 
appearances  must  needs  be  themselves  unreal. 

This  objection  at  once  raises  the  question, '  what 
do  we  mean  by  reality  ? '  and  this  is  more  easily 
asked  than  answered.  In  a  sense — and  perhaps 
this  would  be  the  most  ordinary  answer — whatever 
exists  is  real :  a  real  thing  is  a  thing  that  actually 
exists.  But  as  soon  as  we  have  said  this  we  see 
that  the  problem  has  only  been  transferred  from 
'  reality  *  to  *  existence.'  For  dreams  exist ;  hallucina- 
tions exist ;  love  exists  ;  the  external  world  exists  ; 
but  with  very  different  kinds  or  degrees  of  exist- 
ence. Existence  therefore  must  be  more  defined,  if 
it  is  to  be  our  criterion  of  reality.  And  this  has 
led  to  the  popular  opinion,  supported  by  much 
popular  philosophy,  that  reality  is  constituted  by 
existence  in  space  :  in  accordance  with  which,  what 
were  called  the  primary  qualities  of  bodies,  that  is 
their  spacial  characteristics,  such  as  size  and  shape, 
came  to  be  regarded  as  more  real  than  their  secon- 
dary qualities,  such  as  temperature,  colour,  or  scent. 
But  this  distinction  does  not  help  us,  for  it  is 
utterly  untenable,  and  together  with  the  view  of 
reality  which  it  implied  is  fast  becoming  obsolete. 
On  the  one  hand,  all  sensations,  inasmuch  as 
they  are  affections  of  our  bodily  organism,  exist 
E  a 


Sa  DIVINE   IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE        [chap. 

equally  in  space,  the  redness  of  an  apple,  as  well 
as  its  roundness :  while,  on  the  other  hand,  all  sen- 
sations alike  require  mental  acts  of  inference  and 
interpretation,  to  convert  them  into  perceptions  or 
sources  of  knowledge.  Hence  it  is  impossible  to 
make  *  reality '  turn  upon  any  distinction  between 
inward  and  outward,  or  as  it  is  commonly  called, 
subjective  and  objective  existence  ;  for  the  simple 
reason  that  these  two  phases,  or  aspects,  of  being 
perpetually  interpenetrate  and  pass  into  each  other, 
and  though  separable  by  mental  abstraction,  are 
inseparable  in  fact. 

But  if  for  spacial  we  substitute  personal  exist- 
ence we  are  at  once  on  a  more  hopeful  road.  For, 
whatever  our  use  of  language,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that,  in  actual  life,  every  man  regards  his 
own  personality  as  the  most  real  thing  that  he 
knows ;  not  only  because  its  existence  is  most  cer- 
tain, but  because  its  content  is  most  rich  and  full. 
'  I  profess,'  as  Browning  says, — 

'To  know  just  one  fact — my  self-consciousness — 
'Twixt  ignorance  and  ignorance  enisled^.' 

By  a  natural  and  instinctive  process  we  extend  this 
conviction  to  other  persons,  and  regard  them  as 
more  real  than  impersonal  things.  Hence,  however 
little  we  may  have  reflected  upon  it,  personality  is, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  our  tacitly  acknowledged 
*  Browning,  Francis  Furini, 


hi]  divine  immanence  in  nature  53 

standard  of  reality  ;  and  other  things  are  accounted 
real,  in  proportion  as  they  are  related  to,  and  so 
embraced  within,  the  sphere  of  personality.  Thus 
my  friends  and  neighbours,  my  property,  the  books 
that  I  have  read,  the  science  that  I  have  acquired, 
the  deeds  that  I  have  done,  the  things  that  gratify 
my  senses,  or  offer  resistance  to  my  muscles,  *  my 
star  that  dartlcs  the  red  and  the  blue,'  are  more  real 
to  me  than  all  the  world  beside,  with  which  as  yet 
I  have  only  negative  relations.  In  a  word  what 
affects  me  personally,  and  thereby  becomes  part  of 
myself,  is  real  for  me ;  while  what  affects  me  most 
persistently  and  most  powerfully  is  most  real. 
I  recognize  the  same  to  be  the  case  with  other 
persons ;  that  each  has  his  own  world  of  reality  : 
and  further  that,  while  some  things  only  affect 
individuals,  and  may  therefore  be  called  subjec- 
tively or  relatively  real ;  other  things  affect  all 
alike,  and  are  therefore  real  for  all,  that  is  to  say 
universally  or  objectively  real.  And  when  I  cor- 
rect my  subjective  impressions,  by  reference  to 
objective  reality,  it  is  this  that  I  mean  by  the  term, 
not  what  is  external,  but  what  appeals  equally  to 
all.  For  '  what  appears  to  all,'  as  Aristotle  says, 
'  that  we  say  exists '  (5  Trao-i  5«Kei  tovt  etvai  {fyandv). 
Now  the  condition  of  this  '  appearing  to  all '  is  pre- 
sentation in  external  space,  since  even  a  thought,  if 
it  is  to  appear  to  all,  must  be  written  in  a  book. 
Consequently  space  is  a  medium,  but  not  therefore 


54  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE       [chap. 

a  constituent  of  reality.  Thus  we  consider  a  word 
more  real  than  a  thought,  and  a  deed  than  a  word  ; 
and  this  is  because  they  successively  involve  more 
of  our  entire  personality.  In  uttering  and  enacting 
our  thoughts,  we  have  the  courage  of  our  opinions ; 
we  put  our  will  into  them  and  show  that  we  mean 
them  ;  and  therefore  that  they  are  real  for  us. 
While  at  the  same  time,  through  the  medium  of 
utterance,  or  bodily  expression,  we  bring  them  into 
contact  with  other  persons,  and  thus  enlarge  the 
sphere  of  their  reality.  So  when  a  man  writes 
a  book,  carves  a  statue,  paints  a  picture,  he  is  said 
to  realize  his  thoughts  or  make  them  real ;  not 
merely  because  he  externalizes  them  in  space  ;  but 
because  he  puts  his  will  into  them ;  changing  the 
creations  of  his  mere  imagination  into  creations  of 
his  very  self;  while,  in  so  doing,  he  also  publishes 
them,  or  makes  them  public  ;  that  is  he  recreates 
them  in  the  minds  and  affections  of  countless  other 
persons. 

Objection  is  sometimes  made  to  our  admitting 
degrees  of  reality;  but  there  is  abundant  philoso- 
phical authority  for  so  doing ;  and  if  reality  is  to 
imply  existence,  it  must,  as  we  have  seen,  vary  in 
degree.  It  follows  that  personality,  the  highest 
form  of  existence  which  we  know,  must  be  our 
standard  of  reality ;  and  if  so,  what  is  most  inti- 
mately and  permanently  connected  with  personality 
must  be  for  us,  that  is  for  the  world  of  persons, 


Ill]  DIVINE   IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE  55 

correspondingly  real.  Things  are  real,  not  in  pro- 
portion as  they  are  independent  of  us,  or  removed 
from  us,  but  in  proportion,  on  the  contrary,  as  they 
are  related  to  us:  their  removal  in  space  only 
making  them  more  real,  because  it  invests  them 
with  a  permanent  possibility  of  relationship  to  a 
larger  number  of  persons.  Hence,  to  return  to  our 
starting-point,  atoms  and  their  properties,  as  re- 
vealed by  science,  are  not  more  real  than  the  sen- 
sible impressions  which  they  create  in  all  normally 
constituted  persons :  while  those  impressions  which 
profoundly  touch  the  feelings,  and  modify  the  con- 
duct of  innumerable  men,  may  even  be  called  more 
real,  in  the  only  intelligible  sense  of  the  word,  than 
their  mechanical  causes,  known  only  to  a  small 
minority  of  the  race. 

Take  the  sunset  for  example — a  series  of  etherial 
vibrations,  merely  mechanical  in  origin,  and,  as  such, 
other  than  they  seem  ;  whose  total  effect  is  to  create 
in  us  an  optical  illusion,  making  the  sun,  and  not 
the  earth,  appear  to  move.  Yet,  as  men  watch  its 
appearance,  thoughts  and  feelings  arise  in  their 
hearts,  that  move  their  inmost  being  in  unnumbered 
ways.  Youth  is  fired  with  high  ideals  ;  age  con- 
soled with  peaceful  hopes  ;  saints,  as  they  pray,  see 
heaven  opened  ;  sinners  feel  conscience  strangely 
stirred.  Mourners  are  comforted ;  weary  ones 
rested  ;  artists  inspired  ;  lovers  united  ;  worldlings 
purified  and  softened  as  they  gaze.     In  a  short  half- 


56  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE       [chap. 

hour  all  is  over :  the  mechanical  process  has  come 
to  an  end ;  the  gold  has  melted  into  grey.  But 
countless  souls,  meanwhile,  have  been  soothed,  and 
solaced,  and  uplifted  by  that  evening  benediction 
from  the  far-off  sky ;  and  the  course  of  human  life 
to-day  is  modified  and  moulded  by  the  setting  of 
yesterday's  sun.  In  the  same  way,  a  piece  of  music, 
a  sonata  or  a  symphony,  is  more  real  to  its  audience 
than  the  acoustic  laws  which  cause  it,  or  the  instru- 
ments upon  which  it  is  performed.  The  world  of 
science,  in  other  words,  is  no  more  real  than  the 
world  of  sense  ;  the  two  being  only  diflferent  aspects 
of  one  continuous  whole,  of  which  the  human 
organism  is  also  a  part.  It  follows  that  we  have 
no  ground  whatever  for  discounting  the  religious 
influence  of  external  nature,  as  less  real  than  the 
mechanical  phenomena,  on  which  physically  speak- 
ing it  depends,  and  of  which,  in  fact,  it  may  be  called 
a  manifestation.  The  two  things  impress  different 
faculties  in  us,  but  with  equal  justification. 

This  leads  us  to  the  second  objection  above- 
mentioned,  which  is  really  the  same  objection,  urged 
from  another  point  of  view ;  the  untrustworthiness, 
namely,  of  our  emotions.  It  is  too  often  assumed 
that  the  emotions,  as  contrasted  with  the  intellect, 
are  untrustworthy  guides  to  truth  ;  and  many  even 
of  those  who  think  otherwise,  still  allow  the  emotions 
to  be  called  irrational ;  as  though  belief  in  them 
were  an  act  of  faith,  in  some  sort  needing  an  apology. 


Ill]  DIVINE   IMMANENCE  IN   NATURE  57 

Thus,  in  the  present  case,  the  prospect  of  nature 
confessedly  fills  us  with  emotion ;  but  such  emotion, 
it  is  argued,  has  no  right  to  be  its  own  interpreter ; 
no  right  to  assure  us  of  its  contact  with  a  spiritual 
object ;  no  right,  in  a  word,  to  give  us  any  know- 
ledge, beyond  that  of  its  own  existence.  Now 
this  sharp  distinction  between  feeling  and  under- 
standing, the  emotions  and  the  intellect,  is  wholly 
artificial,  and  untrue  to  fact.  Knowledge  starts 
neither  with  mere  understanding,  nor  mere  feeling, 
both  of  which  are  abstractions,  but  with  personal 
experience ;  the  experience  of  a  person  who  both 
thinks  and  feels,  and  in  whose  unity  thought  and 
feeling  are  inseparably  fused  and  blent.  '  When 
the  soul  feels,  it  is  called  sense  .  .  .  when  it  under- 
stands it  is  called  mind,'  as  Alcuin  admirably  put 
it  long  ago.  Experience  begins  with  sensation,  that 
is  to  say,  feeling;  but  sensation,  as  we  have  seen, 
no  sooner  begins  to  be  felt,  than  it  begins  to  be 
interpreted  by  thought ;  while  thought  itself,  the 
critic  and  interpreter,  is  the  thought  of  a  being  full 
of  feelings,  which  in  one  degree  or  another  qualify 
every  process  of  his  mind.  It  is  true  that  we  can 
isolate  parts  of  our  personal  experience,  by  exclusive 
attention,  and  make  them  objects  of  independent 
pursuit ;  but  this  always  involves  a  process  of  limi- 
tation, or  abstraction,  which  in  proportion  to  its 
completeness  removes  us  from  the  totality  of  truth. 
Thus  a  tea-taster,  or  a  piano-tuner,  confines  his 


58  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE        [chap. 

attention  to  particular  sensations ;  a  pure  mathe- 
matician to  abstract  thought ;  while  an  artist  will 
employ  different  faculties  from  a  soldier,  and  a  soldier 
from  a  judge.  And  it  is  very  easy  to  be  so  biassed 
by  our  special  occupations,  that  we  become  incom- 
plete, one-sided,  fragmentary  men,  like  Wordsworth's 
philosopher — 

'One  that  would  peep  and  botanize 
Upon  his  mother's  grave. 

One  to  whose  smooth  rubbed  soul  can  cling 

Nor  form,  nor  feeling,  great  nor  small ; 

A  reasoning,  self-sufficing  thing, 

An  intellectual  all  in  alP.' 
But  the  way  in  which  common  sense  always  resents 
such  specialism  is  sufficient  proof  of  our  instinctive 
feeling  that,after  all,  we  are  persons  and  notmachines ; 
and  as  persons  we  confront  not  a  part  only  of  our 
environment,  but  the  whole.  The  plain  man  as  well 
as  the  philosopher,  has  and  must  have  his  theory  of 
life,  however  little  he  may  put  it  into  words;  his 
view  that  is  to  say  of  his  relations  to  the  whole  of 
his  surroundings ;  nature,  society,  and  for  all  who 
believe  in  Him,  God.  But  the  whole  of  our  sur- 
roundings, our  total  environment,  impresses  and 
appeals  to  our  total  personality ;  that  is  to  say,  to 
our  personality  not  regarded  as  a  group  of  separate 
faculties,  but  as  a  unity  or  whole.  Consequently  it 
^  Wordsworth,  A  Poet's  Epitaph. 


Ill]  DIVINE   IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE  59 

can  only  be  apprehended  aright  by  our  total  per- 
sonality, our  whole  self  with  its  complex  interaction 
of  emotion,  intellect,  and  will ;  in  which  persistent 
feeling  is  as  important  an  element  as  consistent 
thought. 

Reason  is  of  course  always  at  work  to  understand 
the  world,  and  by  that  very  fact  implies  its  belief 
that  the  world  is,  in  the  last  resort,  intelligible,  or 
capable  of  being  ultimately  understood  ;  and  its 
consequent  right  to  reject  what  is  demonstrably 
irrational  or  contradictory  of  reason.  But  things 
may  be  unintelligible,  in  the  sense  that  we  do  not 
now  understand  them,  without  being  in  any  way 
irrational  or  intrinsically  absurd.  The  world  indeed 
is  full  of  such  unintelligible  things — things  of  whose 
nature  we  know  nothing,  but  of  whose  reality  we  are 
sure  ;  and  a  rational  man  accepts  them  as  facts, 
however  unable  he  may  be  to  explain  them.  We 
are  familiar  enough  with  this  principle  in  ordinary 
life,  where  we  daily  accept  and  utilize  facts,  which, 
though  scientifically  explicable,  we  ourselves  do  not 
personally  understand.  A  plain  man  does  not  under- 
stand his  sensations  of  hunger  and  thirst  or  heat 
and  cold,  but  when  he  accepts  them  as  facts,  and 
feeds  and  clothes  himself  accordingly,  he  is  as  rational 
as  the  physiologist  who  has  a  complete  understand- 
ing of  all  the  processes  of  animal  life.  And  the 
same  is  the  case  with  things  which  are  at  present 
beyond  all  human  comprehension.     Time,  space, 


6o  DIVINE  IMMANENCE   IN   NATURE         [chap. 

motion,  life,  love,  and  indeed  the  whole  of  our  ex- 
perience, in  its  last  analysis,  is  inexplicable.  We  are 
obliged  to  accept  it  as  a  fact,  before  we  can  reason 
about  it  at  all ;  and  no  amount  of  subsequent  reason- 
ing can  ever  explain  how  it  came  to  be  a  fact. 
Hence  reason,  in  all  concrete  cases,  has  to  deal  with 
materials  which  it  never  fully  understands  ;  and  its 
action  is  limited  accordingly.  It  is  like  a  discoverer 
who  can  assert  that  what  he  has  found  exists,  but 
cannot  add  that  what  he  has  not  found  does  not 
exist.  In  discussing  any  part  of  our  personal  ex- 
perience, therefore,  the  first  question  that  arises,  is, 
not  whether  it  is  rational,  but  whether  it  is  a  fact. 
If  it  is  a  fact,  if  it  exists,  if  it  is  really  there,  reason 
cannot  set  it  aside,  for  any  present  inability  to  under- 
stand it.  And  this  is  precisely  the  condition  of  the 
particular  experience  before  us.  It  is  a  fact  as  old 
as  history ;  normal  and  natural  to  man ;  and  to  dis- 
credit it,  as  merely  emotional,  because  we  cannot 
explain  it,  is  absurd.  It  is  not  merely  emotional ; 
it  is  personal :  it  is  the  effect,  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
natural  world,  not  upon  our  feelings,  abstracted 
from  the  rest  of  us,  but  upon  our  feelings  in  their 
vital  connexion  with  the  rest  of  our  personality. 
And  in  this  connexion  we  have  as  much  justification 
for  trusting  our  feelings  as  for  trusting  our  reason  ; 
since  in  either  case  it  is  the  one  personality  behind 
them  which  we  really  trust.  If  I  trust  my  reason, 
I  am  trusting  one  function  of  my  complex  per- 


Ill]  DIVINE   IMMANENCE   IN  NATURE  6r 

sonality ;  that  is  to  say,  I  am  trusting  my  person- 
ality in  one  of  its  activities.  And  when,  by  so  doing, 
I  reach  results  which  can  be  verified,  as  for  instance 
in  the  discovery  of  a  new  planet,  I  prove  my  trust 
to  be  justifiable.  I  prove  that  my  personality  to 
that  extent  acts  truly.  But  this  very  fact  inevitably 
leads  me  to  conclude  that  the  other  functions  of  the 
same  personality,  its  other  modes  of  activity,  must 
be  equally  veracious  ;  and  that  feelings  which  are 
natural  and  normal,  may  be  trusted  in  evidence  of 
what  they  feel ;  for  in  either  case  it  is  one  self-same 
personality  that  acts.  I  might  be  sceptical,  if  I  could 
suppose  that  my  whole  personality  misled  me ;  but 
science,  by  proving  that  part  of  my  personality  tells 
the  truth,  banishes  this  supposition,  and  makes 
scepticism  impossible.  Henceforth  I  must  trust  my 
personality,  and  if  in  one  of  its  functions,  then  in 
all,  for  they  stand  or  fall  together. 

Returning,  then,  to  the  point  from  which  we 
started,  the  religious  influence  of  external  nature ; 
this  cannot,  we  see,  be  discredited  on  the  ground 
that  the  sights  and  sounds  on  which  it  rests  are 
illusory — mere  phenomena — mere  appearances ;  for 
the  very  fact  of  the  effect  which  they  produce  in 
us  is  their  sufficient  title  to  reality.  It  is  precisely 
because  they  appear,  and  by  appearing  profoundly 
affect  us,  that  they  are  real.  Neither  can  the 
influence  in  question  be  disparaged  for  being 
emotional  rather  than  rational ;   since  there  is  no 


6a  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE        [chap. 

possible  ground  for  elevating  one  element  of  our 
personality  above  another,  or  above  the  action, 
which  is  what  here  occurs,  of  our  personality  as 
a  whole. 

But  if  all  this  be  true,  and  the  experience  in 
question  cannot  be  invalidated,  then  it  remains, 
a  stupendous  evidence  that  the  material  universe 
is  a  manifestation  of  spirit.  This  question  is  too 
often  treated  as  if  it  were  merely  an  argumentative 
inference — an  inference  from  beauty,  or  the  need 
of  causation,  or  the  traces  of  design,  or  the  like ; 
in  oblivion  of  the  fact  that  behind,  and  prior  to, 
all  these  inferences,  there  is  the  spiritual  influence, 
which  nature  does,  as  we  have  seen,  undoubtedly 
exert.  And  our  reason  for  emphasizing  the  dis- 
tinction between  this  influence  and  its  interpreta- 
tions, is  to  bring  its  universality  into  stronger 
relief.  However  variously  men  interpret  it,  they 
all  feel  and  have  ever  felt  it  alike. 

Now  we  often  hear  it  said  that  the  first  aspect 
of  nature — its  prima  facie  aspect — makes  for 
materialism.  But  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing 
facts,  this  is  unquestionably  not  the  case.  The 
prima  facie  aspect  of  the  world  conduces  to 
spiritual  belief,  and  the  view  which  makes  for 
materialism  is  not  the  prima  facie  view,  but  that 
which  we  obtain  by  going  behind  the  prima  facie 
view,  to  examine  its  machinery.  But  in  so  doing 
we  pass  from  the  whole  to  a  partial  view.     The 


hi]  divine  immanence  in  nature  63 

prima  facie  view  is  the  judgement  of  our  personality 
as  a  whole,  in  contact  with  nature  as  a  whole ;  that 
is,  a  judgement  in  which  our  entire  being  takes  part. 
But  the  analytical  or  scientific  view  is  a  partial 
view,  with  important  elements  left  out ;  it  makes 
abstraction,  for  its  own  purpose,  of  certain  properties 
of  things,  and  omits  the  remainder.  And  though 
the  physical  sciences  have  been  called  concrete,  in 
comparison  with  the  still  more  abstract  mathe- 
matics, yet  they  are  all  abstract  to  this  extent, 
that  they  regard  only  the  physical  relations  of 
phenomena,  which  possess  also  moral  and  emotional 
relations.  Such  abstraction  is  of  course  as  necessary 
for  the  development  of  thought,  as  is  its  practical 
equivalent,  the  division  of  labour,  for  the  develop- 
ment of  life.  As  social  progress  only  b^ins,  when 
the  different  members  of  a  society  confine  them- 
selves to  the  performance  of  different  functions ;  so 
intellectual  progress  only  begins,  when  the  various 
aspects  of  the  world  are  distributed  for  analysis, 
each  to  a  separate  science.  But  neither  the  special- 
ization of  science,  nor  the  division  of  labour,  are 
ends  in  themselves.  If  we  wish  to  understand 
human  nature,  in  its  fullness,  we  do  not  confine  our 
attention  to  particular  classes  of  the  community — 
soldiers,  statesmen,  merchants,  thinkers,  artists, 
artisans;  but  pass  on  to  the  total  society,  which 
includes,  and  is  enriched  by  all  these  partial  lives ; 
and  supplements,  and  correlates,  and  unifies  them 


64  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE        [chap. 

all.  In  the  same  way,  if  we  wish  to  understand 
material  nature,  in  its  fullness,  we  must  pass  on 
from  its  partial  analysis  to  its  total  effect ;  from 
the  examination  of  its  mechanical  structure,  its 
chemical  properties,  its  organic  development,  its 
aesthetic  appearance,  to  the  actual  result  of  all 
these  things  in  synthesis,  that  is,  in  their  living 
combination,  as  presented  to  the  personality  of 
man.  We  then  find  that  nature,  in  its  concrete 
unity,  has  a  spiritual  character  which  cannot  be 
discovered  from  its  abstract  parts ;  any  more  than 
the  subject  of  a  puzzle  picture  can  be  known  before 
we  have  put  its  isolated  portions  together ;  or  the 
meaning  of  a  word  before  we  have  arranged  its 
letters  when  given  us  to  spell.  In  order  to  empha- 
size the  fact  that  this  spirituality  of  nature  is  not 
an  inference  but  an  experience,  we  have  purposely, 
as  above  stated,  set  the  variety  of  its  interpreta- 
tions aside  ;  though  that  very  variety  is  of  course 
additional  proof  of  the  reality  of  the  experience  in 
question ;  since  it  shows  that,  however  differing 
in  all  their  theories  of  the  world,  men  have  always 
agreed  that  here  was  a  fact,  a  persistent  something, 
to  be  explained.  But  now  that  we  are  clear  upon 
this  point,  we  may  return  to  the  further  question 
of  its  interpretation.  What  is  the  relation  of  the 
material  universe  to  that  Spirit  of  which  it  so 
persistently  seems  to  speak  ?  The  experience  with 
which  we  are  dealing  has,  as  we  have  seen,  been 


in]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE  65 

historically  compatible  with  theories  of  every 
description ;  but  those  theories  are  not  all  equally 
tenable  on  other  grounds. 

Pol)4heism  and  dualism,  for  instance,  are  no 
longer  possible  interpretations ;  for  the  universe  is 
obviously  one.  Its  unity  of  structure  and  develop- 
ment, though  often  maintained  in  other  ages,  has 
been  placed  by  modern  science  in  an  entirely  new 
light ;  and  that  unity  leaves  no  place  for  the 
thought  of  contradictory  beings  at  its  helm.  If 
the  system  of  things  be  guided  by  spiritual  power, 
that  power  must  be  ultimately  one.  And  if  we  are 
to  form  any  further  conjecture  of  the  way  in  which 
this  Spirit  is  related  to  the  material  order,  we  must 
recur  to  the  starting-point  of  all  our  knowledge, 
namely,  ourselves.  Human  personality,  however 
little  we  may  comprehend  it,  is  yet  the  thing  that 
we  know  best,  as  being  the  only  thing  that  we 
know  at  first  hand,  and  from  within.  And  further, 
human  personality  exhibits  spirit  and  matter  in 
combination ;  such  intimate  combination  that,  as 
we  have  seen  above,  they  do  not  admit  of  being 
completely  sundered.  It  is  in  human  personality 
alone,  therefore,  that  we  must  look  for  light  upon 
our  subject ;  the  limited  light  indeed  of  a  lantern 
carried  in  our  own  uncertain  hand,  but  still  the 
only  light  that  we  can  possibly  possess. 

Now  we  find  on  reflection  that  what  we  call  our 
spirit  transcends,  or  is,  in  a  sense,  independent  of 

F 


66  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE        [chap. 

the  bodily  organism  on  which  otherwise  it  so 
entirely  depends.  Metaphysically  speaking  this  is 
seen  in  our  self-consciousness,  or  power  of  separ- 
ating our  self  as  subject  from  our  self  as  object, 
a  thing  wholly  inconceivable  as  the  result  of  any 
material  process,  and  relating  us  at  once  to  an 
order  of  being  which  we  are  obliged  to  call  imma- 
terial. But  as  metaphysical  analysis  is  *  caviare  to 
the  general,'  while  the  metaphysically- minded  will 
find  this  point  amply  illustrated  by  most  modern 
philosophers,  it  will  be  sufficient  for  our  purpose 
to  appeal  to  the  more  familiar  field  of  morals. 

Morally  speaking,  we  are  responsible  for  our 
actions.  That  is  a  fact  which  no  sane  man  doubts. 
It  is  the  assumption  on  which  the  whole  course  of 
our  political  and  social  life  is  carried  on;  and  if 
a  man  takes  leave  to  deny  it,  except  in  theory, 
law  soon  interferes  for  his  correction.  There  is 
no  fact  in  the  world  that,  in  their  misery,  men 
would  more  gladly  have  denied ;  yet  they  are 
agreed  to  treat  its  denial  as  a  manifest  absurdity. 
Surely,  then,  it  is  as  strong  a  conviction  as  any 
that  can  be  conceived.  And  this  conviction  is 
amply  sufficient  for  our  purpose ;  for  it  implies  that 
we  are  self-identical  and  free,  the  same  personal 
unit  to-day  that  we  were  when  born — whereas  all 
the  matter  of  our  bodies  has  changed — and  capable 
of  determining  ourselves  from  within,  whereas  all 
matter  is  determined  by  something  else,  and  from 


hi]  divine  immanence  in  nature  &i 

without  ^  Our  present  object  is  not  to  argue  these 
points,  which  have  been  argued  abundantly  else- 
where, but  simply  to  refer  to  them,  as  results  of 
past  argument,  in  illustration  of  the  fact  that,  with 
all  our  dependence  upon  matter,  we  yet  transcend 
it ;  we  move  in  a  plane  above  it,  and  are,  though 
in  a  limited  degree,  its  masters  and  not  its  slaves. 
This,  then,  is  one  aspect  of  the  relation  between 
spirit  and  matter,  as  known  within  the  circle  of  our 
own  personality.  And  when  we  pass  beyond  that 
circle  to  mould  the  external  world  to  our  use,  through 
various  forms  of  scientific  invention,  and  artistic 
creation,  it  becomes  still  more  apparent  that  spirit 
has  a  dominant  and  transcendent  relation  to  matter. 
But  from  another  point  of  view  our  spirit  may  be 
described  as  '  immanent '  in  matter.  It  not  only 
works  through  the  brain  and  nervous  system,  but, 
as  a  result,  pervades  the  entire  organism,  animating 
and  inspiring  it  with  its  own  '  peculiar  difference ' ; 
so  that  we  recognize  a  man's  character  in  the 
expression  of  his  eye,  the  tone  of  his  voice,  the 
touch  of  his  hand  ;  his  unconscious  and  instinctive 
postures,  and  gestures,  and  gait.  Nor  is  this '  imma- 
nence' confined  to  the  bodily  organism.  It  extends, 
in  what  may  be  called  a  secondary  degree,  to  the 
inanimate  objects  of  the  external  world.  For  a 
man  imprints  his  spiritual  character  upon  all  the 
things  with  which  he  deals,  his  house,  his  clothes, 

*  See  Appendix. 
F  a 


68  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE        [chap. 

his  furniture,  the  various  products  of  his  hand  or 
head.  And  when  we  speak  of  a  man's  spirit  sur- 
viving in  his  works,  the  expression  is  no  mere 
metaphor ;  for  through  those  works,  even  though 
dead  and  gone,  he  continues  to  influence  his  fellow- 
men.  And  when  we  look  at  the  pictures  of  Rafifaelle, 
or  listen  to  the  music  of  Beethoven,  or  read  the 
poetry  of  Dante,  or  the  philosophy  of  Plato,  the 
spirit  of  the  great  Masters  is  affecting  us  as  really 
as  if  we  saw  them  face  to  face :  it  is  immanent  in 
the  painted  canvas  and  the  printed  page. 

Spirit  then,  as  we  know  it  in  our  own  personal 
experience,  has  two  different  relations  to  matter, 
that  of  transcendence,  and  that  of  immanence.  But 
though  logically  distinct,  these  two  relations  are 
not  actually  separate  ;  they  are  two  aspects  of  one 
fact;  two  points  of  view  from  which  the  single 
action  of  our  one  personality  may  be  regarded. 
As  self-conscious,  self-identical,  self-determined,  we 
possess  qualities  which  transcend  or  rise  above  the 
laws  of  matter ;  but  we  can  only  realize  these 
qualities,  and  so  become  aware  of  them,  by  acting 
in  the  material  world ;  while  conversely  material 
objects — our  bodies,  and  our  works  of  art — could 
never  possibly  be  regarded  as  expressions  of  spirit, 
if  spirit  were  not  at  the  same  time  recognized  as 
distinct  from  its  medium  of  manifestation. 

If  then  we  are  to  raise  the  question,  'what  is 
the  relation  of  the  supreme  Spirit  to  the  material 


Ill]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE   IN  NATURE  69 

universe  ? '  this  is  the  analogy  upon  which  we  must 
proceed;  for  we  have  no  other.  We  may  indeed 
decline  the  problem  as  wholly  insoluble ;  but  if 
we  attempt  its  solution  at  all,  it  must  of  necessity 
be  upon  the  lines  of  the  only  experience  which  we 
possess — this  experience  in  which  transcendence  and 
immanence  are  combined. 

This  at  once  excludes  pantheism,  the  belief  that 
God  is  merely  immanent  in  matter ;  for  attractive 
as  this  creed  has  often  seemed  to  worshippers  of 
nature,  it  cannot  really  be  construed  into  thought. 
Spirit  which  is  merely  immanent  in  matter,  without 
also  transcending  it,  cannot  be  spirit  at  all ;  it  is 
only  another  aspect  of  matter,  having  neither  self- 
identity  nor  freedom.  Pantheism  is  thus  really 
indistinguishable  from  materialism;  it  is  merely 
materialism  grown  sentimental,  but  no  more  ten- 
able for  its  change  of  name. 

The  logical  opposite  of  pantheism  is  deism,  in 
the  sense  of  belief  in  a  merely  transcendent  God ; 
and  this  is  equally  inconsistent  with  our  analogy ; 
for  as  we  have  no  experience  whatever  of  spirit  or 
matter  as  existing  apart,  we  cannot  conceive  either 
term  of  the  deistic  universe.  But  deism  of  this 
kind,  though  it  has  occupied  an  important  place  in 
history,  is  scarcely  a  form  of  thought  with  which  at 
the  present  day  we  need  to  reckon.  It  belongs  to 
a  metaphysical  rather  than  a  scientific  atmosphere 
and  age. 


70  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE        [chap. 

Yet  another  view  of  the  question  has  been  sug- 
gested under  the  name  of  monism ;  the  view  that 
'matter  in  motion  is  substantially  identical  with 
mind,'  that  they  are  two  aspects  of  one  thing,  which 
from  the  outside  we  call  matter,  and  from  the  inside 
mind.  At  first  sight  this  seems  only  another  name 
for  materialism ;  and,  in  fact,  the  word  monism  is 
expressly  used  by  Haeckel  as  synonymous  with 
scientific  materialism.  But  its  use  has  also  been 
advocated  in  a  theistic  sense ;  the  mental  aspect 
being  regarded  as  prior  in  importance,  though  not 
in  existence  to  the  material, — a  position  very  much 
akin  to  Spinozism.  Now  the  supposed  advantage  of 
this  theory  is,  that  it  abolishes  all  the  difficulties 
of  dualism.  But  it  is  obviously  no  more  than  an 
imaginative  conjecture,  and  upon  what  does  it  rest? 
'We  have  only  to  suppose  that  the  antithesis  be- 
tween mind  and  motion — subject  and  object — is 
itself  phenomenal  or  apparent,  not  absolute  or  real  ^.* 
That  is  to  say  that,  when  we  are  confronted  in  our 
personal  experience  with  a  dualism,  whose  mystery 
we  cannot  solve,  we  may  at  once  attain  intellectual 
satisfaction,  by  the  simple  expedient  of  assuming  it 
to  be  an  illusion.  But  this  is  precisely  what  the 
materialist  docs,  and  is  condemned  for  doing ;  and 
we  are  no  more  justified  in  discrediting  the  primary 
facts  of  consciousness  in  the  interests  of  spirit,  than 
in  the  interests  of  matter.  Monism,  in  short,  whether 
*  Romanes,  Mind,  Matter,  and  Monism. 


Ill]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE  71 

material  or  spiritual,  is  not  based  upon  what  we 
know  in  ourselves,  and  what  is,  to  that  extent, 
solid  fact ;  but  upon  distrust  of  what  we  think  we 
know  in  ourselves — a  sceptical  foundation,  which 
cannot  possibly  support  a  positive  conclusion. 
It  should  further  be  noticed  that,  in  the  above 
quotation,  mind  and  matter  are  treated  as  synony- 
mous with  subject  and  object.  This  in  itself  is  a 
mistake,  but  a  mistake  essential  to  the  theory.  For 
it  is  only  by  considering  mind  as  a  mere  series  of 
subjective  or  mental  states,  that  we  can  plausibly 
consider  motion  as  its  parallel  concomitant.  But 
the  characteristic  of  mind,  as  we  know  it  in  our 
personal  spirit,  is  that  it  is  both  subject  and  object 
at  once ;  it  is  capable  of  becoming  its  own  object, 
and  saying  I  am  I.  It  is  through  this  power  of 
self-consciousness,  or  self-diremption,  that  spirit 
transcends  matter,  as  we  have  already  had  occasion 
to  point  out ;  and  it  is  precisely  this  power  which 
we  are  unable  to  conceive  as  having  any  material 
equivalent.  Monism,  in  fact,  started  from  the 
physical  side,  from  analysis  of  the  cerebral  con- 
ditions of  thought ;  it  rests  on  physical  analogies, 
and  is  coloured  by  physical  modes  of  thought ; 
and  the  attempt  to  make  it  metaphysically  tenable 
seems  an  impossible  tour  deforce. 

It  remains  then  that  we  confine  ourselves  to  the 
analogy  of  our  personal  experience,  and  conceive 
of  God  as  at  once  transcending  and  immanent  in 


7a  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE        [chap. 

nature  ;  for  however  incomprehensible  this  relation- 
ship may  be,  we  know  it  in  our  own  case  to  be 
a  fact,  and  may  legitimately  infer  its  analogue 
outside  ourselves. 

On  this  analogy  then,  the  divine  presence  which 
we  recognize  in  nature  will  be  the  presence  of 
a  Spirit,  which  infinitely  transcends  the  material 
order,  yet  sustains  and  indwells  it  the  while.  We 
cannot  indeed  explain  the  method,  either  of  the 
transcendence,  or  of  the  indwelling ;  but  we  come 
no  nearer  to  an  explanation,  by  attempting,  with 
any  of  the  above-mentioned  theories,  to  obtain 
simplicity  by  suppressing  either  aspect  of  the  only 
analogy  that  we  possess.  But  it  will  be  remem- 
bered that  in  our  own  case  we  noticed  two  degrees 
of  immanence ;  our  essential  immanence  in  our 
body,  which  is  consequently  often  called  our 
person ;  and  our  contingent  immanence  in  the 
works  which  we  are  free  to  create  or  not  at  will. 
The  question  therefore  inevitably  arises,  under 
which  of  these  analogies  are  we  to  think  of  God's 
relation  to  the  world.  Is  the  universe  His  body, 
or  His  work  ?  Different  answers  have  been  given 
to  this  question  by  different  thinkers  ;  and  it  is 
obvious  that  no  answer  can  be  more  than  con- 
jectural or  hypothetical. 

Under  these  circumstances  we  are  entitled  to 
urge,  that  the  Trinitarian  conception  of  God,  which 
we  Christians  have  independent  reasons  for  believ- 


m]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  NATURE  73 

ing  to  be  true,  is  intellectually  the  most  satisfac- 
tory; since  it  embraces  both  the  kinds  of  immanence 
in  question,  and  therefore  harmonizes  with  the 
entire  analogy  of  our  personal  experience.  For 
according  to  this  doctrine,  the  Second  Person  of 
the  Trinity  is  the  essential,  adequate,  eternal  mani- 
festation of  the  First,  *  the  express  image  of  His 
person,'  '  in  whom  dwelleth  the  fulness  of  the  God- 
head bodily,'  while  'by  Him  all  things  were  made.' 
Here  then  we  have  our  two  degrees  of  immanence ; 
the  complete  immanence  of  the  Father  in  the 
Son,  of  which  our  own  relation  to  our  body  is  an 
inadequate  type ;  and,  as  a  result  of  this,  His 
immanence  in  creation,  analogous  to  our  presence 
in  our  works ;  with  the  obvious  difference,  of  course, 
that  we  finite  beings  who  die  and  pass  away,  can 
only  be  impersonally  present  in  our  works ;  whereas 
He  must  be  conceived  as  ever  present  to  sustain 
and  animate  the  universe,  which  thus  becomes  a 
living  manifestation  of  Himself; — no  mere  machine, 
or  book,  or  picture,  but  a  perpetually  sounding  voice. 


CHAPTER   IV 

DIVINE   IMMANENCE  IN  MAN 

THE  thought  of  God's  immanence  in  nature  has 
commended  itself  at  the  present  day,  on  quite 
independent  grounds,  to  many  of  the  students  both 
of  science  and  philosophy.  But  if  God  is  immanent 
in  nature,  He  must  also  be  immanent  in  man,  since 
man  is  a  part  of  nature ;  and  if  it  is  not  so,  our 
previous  belief  will  be  discredited,  while  if  it  is  so, 
it  will  be  strongly  confirmed. 

Now  when  we  turn  to  man,  we  are  struck  at 
once  by  the  phenomenon  of  conscience :  the  most 
mysterious  of  all  his  attributes.  What  we  com- 
monly call  conscience  is  a  complex  thing ;  various 
strands  are  woven  into  its  woof  It  has  a  long 
history  behind  it,  and  was  not,  in  early  ages,  either 
as  intelligent  or  as  definite  as  now ;  nor,  of  course, 
is  it  equally  educated  among  all  races  at  the  pre- 
sent day.  But  what  we  find  in  its  highest  develop- 
ment must  have  been  implicitly  present  in  its 
earliest  germ ;  and  what  we  do  find  is  a  sense, 
within  our  inmost  self,  of  something  'not  ourself 


DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  75 

which  makes  for  righteousness '  ;  a  categorical  im- 
perative, an  authoritative  voice,  which  we  can  only 
ascribe  to  God.  This  is  the  religious  account  of 
conscience,  and  it  cannot  be  explained  away.  No 
hypothesis  that  has  ever  been  suggested  will  really 
account  for  its  unique  authority  ;  and  moreover  we 
have  not  to  deal  with  past  possibilities,  but  present 
facts.  We  know  perfectly  well  what  we  mean  by  a 
categorical  imperative,  an  absolute,  unqualified,  un- 
conditional command  ;  and  we  know  perfectly  well 
that  it  is  thus,  and  only  thus,  that  conscience  speaks. 
And  it  is  this  that  leads  us  to  regard  conscience 

'As  God's  most  intimate  Presence  in  the  soul 
And  His  most  perfect  Image  in  the  world*.* 

Moreover  in  proportion  as  conscience  is  consis- 
tently obeyed,  goodness  and  holiness  of  character 
result ;  and  this  is  a  process  which  the  good  and 
holy,  the  men  who  by  experience  know  most  about 
it,  habitually  ascribe  to  the  co-operation  of  God, 
— '  God  working  within  them,'  in  scriptural  phrase, 
*both  to  will  and  to  do  of  His  good  pleasure.* 
*Amor  Dei  intellectualis*  says  even  Spinoza,  *  pars 
est  infiniti  amor  is,  quo  Deus  seipsum  amat*  *  Our 
love  of  God  in  its  highest  form  is  but  a  portion  of 
God's  infinite  love  for  Himself.'  It  is  easy  to  say 
that  such  men  misinterpret  their  own  history,  and 
attribute  to  divine  assistance  what  is  but  a  function 
*  Wordsworth,  Excursion^  iv. 


^6  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

of  themselves.  But  those  who  have  confessedly 
succeeded  in  attaining  what  other  men  have  failed 
to  attain,  must,  in  common  sense,  be  credited  with 
knowing  best  what  has  been  the  secret  of  their  own 
success.  Nor  as  a  matter  of  fact  is  the  experience 
in  question  at  all  confined  to  the  saintly  few,  the 
elect  minority  in  every  age,  who  have  been  eminent 
for  character  and  conduct.  It  is  echoed  and  has 
been  echoed,  from  the  dawn  of  history,  in  countless 
human  hearts  ;  far  and  wide  men  have  believed 
that,  in  the  spiritual  struggles  of  their  inner  life, 
they  were  aware  of  divine  intervention  and  assis- 
tance ;  while  in  proportion  as  the  struggle  has  been 
more  successful,  the  conviction  has  grown  more 
sure.  The  fact  that  such  a  phenomenon  cannot  be 
expressed  in  scientific  terms,  and  is  entirely  out  of 
the  range  of  our  psychology,  must  not  be  allowed 
to  blind  us  to  its  enormous  magnitude — the  im- 
mense place  which  it  fills,  and  has  filled  in  the 
spiritual  life  of  our  race. 

Thus  God's  immanence  in  nature,  we  may 
reasonably  assert,  reappears  as  inspiration  in  man. 
Meanwhile  our  spiritual  character  reacts  upon  the 
material  instrument  of  its  realization,  moulding 
the  brain  and  nervous  system,  and  thence  the  entire 
bodily  organism,  into  gradual  accordance  with 
itself;  till  the  expression  of  the  eye,  the  lines  of 
the  face,  the  tones  of  the  voice,  the  touch  of  the 
hand,  the  movements,  and  manners,  and  gracious 


iv]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  77 

demeanour,  all  reveal,  with  increasing  clearness, 
the  nature  of  the  spirit  that  has  made  them  what 
they  are.  Thus  the  interior  beauty  of  holiness 
comes  by  degrees  to  be  a  visible  thing  ;  and  through 
His  action  upon  our  spirit,  God  is  made  manifest 
in  our  flesh.  While  in  proportion  as  we  are 
enabled  to  recognize  this  progressive  manifestation 
of  God  in  matter,  we  are  prepared  to  find  it  cul- 
minate in  His  actual  Incarnation,  the  climax  of 
His  immanence  in  the  world. 

It  must  not  of  course  be  forgotten  that  one  of  the 
popular  objections  to  Christianity  is  founded  upon 
this  very  fact ;  that  it  is  so  congruous  with  human 
thought.  Man,  we  know,  in  uncritical  ages,  tends 
to  believe  in  incarnations ;  they  are  a  common 
form  of  thought  with  him;  he  is  predisposed  in 
their  favour ;  medicine  men,  priests,  kings,  prophets, 
and  abnormal  individuals  of  every  kind,  being  con- 
stantly regarded  as  embodied  gods.  And  the 
Christian  Incarnation,  it  is  argued,  is  but  the  last 
lingering  survival  of  these  obsolete  modes  of 
thought.  Its  resemblance  to  countless  other  base- 
less beliefs  of  the  kind  creates  a  presumption  that 
it  is  not  true.  This  argument  is  usually  answered 
by  a  reference  to  history ;  to  the  external  evidence 
and  internal  character  of  the  Christian  story,  as 
contrasted  with  all  other  accounts  of  incarnations. 
But  as  many  minds  are  prevented,  by  the  very 
argument  in  question,  from  approaching  the  facts 


78  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

of  history  without  antecedent  bias,  it  may  be  well 
to  notice  that  there  is  a  logical  as  well  as  an 
historical  answer. 

The  tendency  to  believe  in  incarnations  involves 
two  elements — a  belief  in  their  probability,  and 
a  belief  in  their  actual  occurrence ;  a  belief  that 
they  may  happen  any  day,  and  a  belief  that  they 
have  happened  here  and  now ;  the  one  being  a 
general  principle  of  thought,  and  the  other  a  par- 
ticular judgement  of  fact.  And  it  is  obvious  that 
no  number  of  mistakes  on  this  latter  point  would 
affect  the  credibility  of  a  new  instance.  The  mere 
fact  that  a  possible  event  did  not  happen,  in  ninety- 
nine  supposed  cases.,  is  no  reason  for  arguing  that 
it  will  not  happen  in  the  hundredth, — as  the  familiar 
story  of  the  boy  and  the  wolf  may  suffice  to  show. 

It  is  therefore  with  the  other  element  that  the 
argument  is  concerned,  the  general  tendency  to 
believe  incarnations  probable.  But  a  general 
tendency  in  the  human  mind  to  expect  a  thing 
cannot  possibly  be  twisted  into  a  presumption 
against  its  occurrence.  *  Men  were  always  expect- 
ing it,  therefore  it  cannot  have  occurred,'  is,  when 
baldly  stated,  a  manifest  absurdity.  Of  course  it 
will  be  answered  that  what  is  meant  is  '  Men  were 
always  expecting  it,  therefore  they  invented  its 
occurrence.'  But  the  fact  of  the  expectation  does 
not  logically  make  invention  a  likelier  alterna- 
tive than  occurrence ;  except  upon  one  hypothesis, 


!▼]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  79 

namely,  that  the  occurrence  is  impossible.  And 
here  we  have  the  root  of  the  whole  matter.  An 
incarnation  is  first  ruled  out  of  court,  as  being 
tf/rw?r»  impossible;  and  then  the  expectation  of  it 
is  treated  as  an  illusion.  But  this  is  what  logicians 
call  begging  the  question.  That  is  to  say,  the 
tendency  to  believe  in  incarnations  creates  no  pre- 
sumption whatever  against  the  reality  of  a  particular 
incarnation,  except  upon  the  previous  assumption 
that  the  tendency  is  false.  Thus  the  argument 
before  us  does  not  really  rest  upon  the  fact  in 
human  nature  which  it  quotes,  but  upon  a  purely 
arbitrary  interpretation  of  the  fact.  We  may  say 
baldly  and  boldly,  *  incarnations  are  impossible ' ; 
but  we  cannot  strengthen  the  statement  by  adding 
•because  mankind  has  always  believed  them.'  An 
assumption  may  look  more  plausible  when  disguised 
as  an  induction,  but  it  does  not  therefore  gain 
lexical  force. 

Nor  is  this  negative  conclusion  all  that  we  are 
justified  in  drawing.  For  when  fairly  faced,  the 
t€ndency  in  question  is  not  only  no  argument 
against  the  Incarnation,  but  rather  creates  a  pre- 
sumption of  its  truth.  For  it  is  only  part  and 
parcel  of  man's  general  sense  of  the  divine  nearness 
— nearness  to  and  interest  in  himself.  Man's 
habitual,  and  almost  instinctive  belief  in  the  exis- 
tence of  a  God  or  gods,  has  always  been  regarded 
as  among  the  strongest  evidences  of  natural  reli- 


8o  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

gion.  Its  universality,  that  is  to  say,  has  been 
recognized  as  weighty  evidence  of  its  truth.  But 
almost  everywhere  we  find  this  belief  to  be  insepar- 
ably connected  with  the  further  conviction,  that 
their  gods  desire  intercourse  and  friendship  with 
men.  And  if  the  universality  of  the  one  belief  is 
recognized  as  an  argument  in  its  favour,  the  prac- 
tical universality  of  the  other  must  be  so  too ;  it 
must  be  regarded  as  pointing  to  a  truth.  Again, 
we  recognize  that  the  religious  instinct,  in  its  earlier 
stages,  continually  misinterpreted  itself —  finding 
gods  in  stocks  and  stones,  sun,  moon,  and  stars, 
birds,  beasts,  and  fishes.  But  we  do  not  consider 
the  instinct  itself  as  discredited  by  the  fact,  or  our 
present  conception  of  God  as  less  true,  because  it 
was  only  slowly  disentangled  from  these  absurdities. 
It  was  not  the  religious  instinct,  we  consider,  that 
erred,  but  the  crude  philosophy  which  could  not 
interpret  the  instinct  And  it  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  same  with  the  special  tendency  that  we 
are  considering.  Men  took  it  for  granted  that 
their  gods  were  desirous  of  intercourse  with  them  ; 
and  this  instinctive  expectation  made  it  easy  to 
believe,  that  among  other  modes  of  manifestation, 
the  gods  had  not  only  spoken  through  inspired 
men,  but  had  themselves  from  time  to  time  assumed 
human  form,  either  in  the  way  of  theophany  or 
incarnation.  But  here  again  no  number  of  mis- 
taken facts  can  invalidate  the  instinct  behind  them. 


!▼]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  8i 

Folklore  and  mythology  find  endless  traces  of  sup- 
posed incarnations  which  are  quite  as  unspiritual, 
and  even  immoral,  as  they  are  unscientific ;  and 
conflict  not  only  with  all  canons  of  rational  criti- 
cism, but  even  with  the  ordinary  dictates  of  plain 
common  sense.  Yet  these  fictions  only  emphasize 
the  persistence  of  the  instinct  which  continued  to 
invent  them,  because  it  continued  to  demand  them. 
And  when  at  lengjth  we  are  confronted  with  a  tale 
of  Incarnation,  whose  spiritual  sublimity  and  actual 
influence  are  alike  absolutely  unique,  its  believers 
may  fairly  recognize  in  the  previous  expectation 
of  mankind,  an  additional  proof  of  its  truth.  The 
event  has  occurred,  they  may  reasonably  say,  which 
man's  prophetic  soul  divined.  The  Incarnation, 
that  he  often  so  fantastically  dreamed  of,  has  at 
last  become  a  fact. 

But  it  may  still  be  said,  and  often  is  said,  that 
the  Incarnation,  in  which  Christians  believe,  is  really 
as  incompatible  with  reverent  notions  of  God  as 
the  unworthier  legends  to  which  we  have  alluded ; 
since  it  involves  a  miraculous  interference  with  the 
order  of  nature,  which  is  utterly  unbecoming  of 
the  author  of  nature ;  and  ought  in  fact  to  shock 
our  scientific  sense,  as  the  earlier  stories  shock  our 
moral  sense  of  what  is  appropriate  to  the  character 
of  God. 

This  is  a  very  familiar  objection,  and  has  still 
great  weight   with   many   minds,   but  it   involves 

G 


8s  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

various  assumptions  which,  to  say  the  least,  are 
open  to  dispute. 

In  the  first  place,  it  involves  a  false  antithesis,  as 
will  easily  appear  from  what  has  gone  before,  be- 
tween nature  and  man.  'Is  the  great  order  of 
nature  likely  to  be  altered,  it  magniloquently  asks, 
in  deference  to  the  insignificant  interests  of  man?* 
But  man  and  nature  are  inseparable  parts  of  one 
whole,  as  we  have  already  seen;  and  foremost 
among  man's  attributes  is  his  belief  in  his  own 
spiritual  importance ;  the  absolute  worth  of  his 
personality,  as  against  all  impersonal  things.  This 
instinct  may  be  justified  by  philosophical  analysis, 
as  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  point  out ;  but 
it  is  far  more  vividly  vindicated  in  ordinary  eyes, 
by  the  martyr  who  dies  for  a  creed.  For  martyr- 
dom is  the  complete  refusal  to  compromise  our 
spiritual  consistency,  by  denying  what  we  believe  ; 
the  extreme  assertion  that  spiritual  integrity  out- 
weighs all  material  things ;  that  at  all  costs  we 
must  remain  ourselves,  and  not  contradict  our- 
selves; that  our  personality  has  absolute  worth. 
There  can  be  no  question  whatever  that  this  con- 
viction is  inherent  in  the  very  make  and  constitu- 
tion of  man :  and  as  such  it  is  an  element  in  the 
universe  ;  a  phenomenon  or  part  of  the  universe ; 
and  as  real  as  any  of  its  other  phenomena  or  parts. 
What  we  find  therefore  is  not  an  order  of  nature  on 
the  one  side,  and  human  interest  on  the  other ;  but 


ivj  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  83 

a  single  system  of  which  this  conviction  is  a  part  ; 
an  order  of  nature  in  which  it  is  included  ;  a  com- 
bination of  two  elements  of  which  one  possesses  the 
attribute  of  claiming  supremacy  over  the  other. 
We  cannot  study  external  nature  except  through 
our  spirit,  and  our  spirit  brings  this  inevitable  con- 
viction with  it  to  the  task.  In  the  very  act  of 
knowing  matter  we  judge  it  subordinate  to  spirit, 
while  matter  itself  subserves  the  judgement  through 
the  brain  by  which  it  is  made.  To  say  therefore 
that  the  order  of  nature  is  not  likely  to  be  altered 
for  man,  or  in  other  words,  that  matter  is  not  likely 
to  be  altered  in  the  interest  of  spirit,  is  to  contra- 
dict our  fundamental  conception  of  the  relative 
importance  of  the  two.  And  no  such  argument, 
from  moral  improbability,  can  be  raised  against 
miracle  as  such. 

Moreover,  when  the  miraculous  character  of  the 
Incarnation  is  attacked,  it  is  important  to  distinguish 
between  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  and  its  mode, 
the  conditions  and  circumstances  by  which  it  was 
accompanied.  For  upon  reflection  we  may  easily 
see,  that  there  is  no  justification  whatever  for  regard- 
ing the  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  the  fact  of  God 
becoming  man,  as  a  miracle  in  any  ordinary  sense 
of  the  word.  For  by  a  miracle  we  mean  an  inter- 
ference with  the  usual  order  of  events, — something 
which  happens  differently  from  other  cases  of  its 
kind, — as  when  a  dead  man  comes  to  life  again,  or 
G  a 


84  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

water  is  made  wine.  But  an  event  which  by  its 
nature  is,  ex  hypothesi,  unique — the  sole  and  only 
possible  occurrence  of  its  kind — has  no  usual  order 
with  which  to  come  in  conflict ;  and  unless  it  be 
intrinsically  irrational,  there  can  be  no  antecedent 
presumption  against  it.  It  may  be  strange,  sur- 
prising, stupendous,  but,  in  no  intelligible  sense  of 
the  word,  miraculous.  Thus  nothing  in  the  course 
of  nature,  nothing  in  the  previous  history  of  man, 
could  create  a  shred  of  rational  presumption  against 
the  occurrence  of  an  Incarnation.  It  stands 
free  to  be  judged  without  bias  on  its  own  intrinsic 
claim. 

It  may  of  course  be  replied  that  this  distinction 
between  the  fact  and  the  mode  of  the  Incarnation 
is  unfair ;  since  the  two  things  are  inseparable 
elements  of  one  supposed  event,  which  must  be 
discredited  as  a  whole,  by  the  incredible  character 
of  either  part.  But  the  whole  point  of  the  distinc- 
tion in  question  is  to  preclude  such  an  objection, 
by  showing  that  the  fact  stands  in  a  necessary  rela- 
tion of  logical  priority  to  the  mode,  and  must  be 
considered  first :  that  the  Incarnation  is  the  in- 
evitable presupposition  of  its  miracles.  If  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  divine  Author  of  our  human  life  and 
death,  it  is  manifestly  absurd  to  say  that  He  could 
not,  or  would  not,  heal  the  sick  and  raise  the  dead. 
Such  miracles,  taken  by  themselves,  would  be  in  the 
last  degree  improbable ;  but  as  results  of  an  Incar- 


iv]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  85 

nation  they  are  so  probable  that  we  should  even 
call  them  natural.  Thus  the  incredibility  of  the 
mode  entirely  vanishes,  if  the  fact  be  true  ;  and  we 
can  never  ask  about  a  Christian  miracle  simply, '  Is 
it  likely  to  have  happened  ? '  but '  Is  it  likely  to  have 
happened,  if  Christ  was  God  ? '  Consequently,  when 
we  hear  the  Gospels  rejected  on  account  of  their 
miracles,  it  is  obvious  that  the  divinity  of  Christ  has 
been  rejected  first.  But  if  so,  upon  what  ground  ? 
evidently  and  necessarily  upon  an  a  priori  ground 
— the  a  priori  ground  that  an  Incarnation  is  im- 
probable. Hence  it  is  important  to  show,  as  we 
have  done  above,  that  such  a  presumption  has  no 
logical  foundation.  It  is  merely  a  baseless  prejudice 
for  which  no  sound  reason  can  be  produced.  For 
what  are  the  facts  of  the  case?  The  picturesque 
simile  of  the  bird  flying  in  from  the  night,  we  know 
not  whence,  and  out  in  the  night  again,  we  know  not 
whither,  is  as  true  of  human  life  to-day,  as  when  it 
was  first  urged,  in  the  hall  of  Eadwine,  as  an  argu- 
ment for  listening  to  the  Christian  teacher.  With 
all  our  science,  we  know  nothing,  unless  from  reve- 
lation, of  the  ultimate  origin  or  final  destiny  of  man  ; 
why  he  exists,  and  how  the  purpose  of  his  existence 
can  best  be  carried  out.  Even  of  what  man  really 
is,  we  have  probably  at  present  no  more  knowledge, 
than  an  egg  would  convey  of  an  eagle,  or  an  acorn 
of  an  oak.  And  if  this  is  true  of  our  knowledge  of 
man,  it  is  true  a  fortiori  of  our  knowledge  of  God. 


86  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

Apart  then  altogether  from  any  question  of  revela- 
tion, can  there  be  a  shadow  of  reason  for  presuming 
that  God,  of  whose  essential  nature  we  are  abso- 
lutely ignorant,  cannot  become  man,  of  whose 
essential  nature  we  know  hardly  more.  It  may  be 
as  natural,  so  to  speak,  for  God  to  become  man,  as 
for  God  to  create  man ;  and  the  Incarnation  may, 
for  all  we  know,  be  an  inevitable  consequence  of 
creation,  as  some  theologians  have  ventured  to 
assert.  Any  prejudice  therefore  that  we  may  feel, 
against  the  probability  of  the  Incarnation,  is  not 
a  reasonable  conviction  but  an  irrational  bias ;  due 
to  the  shock  of  its  great  mystery  upon  the  mind. 
We  are  so  unaccustomed  to  think  of  mysteries,  in 
the  trivial  round  of  daily  life,  that  their  unexpected 
presentation  is  an  affront  to  us.  Yet  all  ultimate 
realities  are  equally  mysterious,  when  once  we  pause 
to  think  of  them, — being,  life,  sense,  thought,  love, 
will,God; — omnia  exeunt  in  mysterium^zs,  theschool- 
men  said ;  there  can  be  no  possible  presumption 
against  the  occurrence  of  an  event  merely  because 
its  mystery  is  profound- 
Still,  the  absence  of  contrary  presumption,  it  may 
be  urged,  does  not  carry  us  far  ;  and  there  must  be 
very  strong  evidence  in  favour  of  the  Incarnation, 
before  it  can  be  received.  There  is  of  course  very 
strong  evidence,  in  the  judgement  of  its  believers ; 
but  its  strength  is  still  often  obscured,  by  the  mis- 
taken idea  that  it  consists  chiefly  of  miracles.     For 


iv]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  87 

miracles,  at  the  present  day,  far  from  supporting 
anything  else,  are  popularly  supposed  to  be  them- 
selves much  in  need  of  support ;  so  that,  for  many 
minds,  they  tend  to  invalidate,  rather  than  to  fortify, 
the  credit  of  any  document  wherein  their  occurrence 
is  recorded.  And  though  this  position  requires 
criticism,  it  may  for  the  present  be  passed  over  ; 
since  miracles  neither  are,  nor  ever  were  regarded 
by  the  Christian  Church  as,  the  primary  proof  of 
the  Incarnation.  For  the  Incarnation  is  primarily 
and  essentially  a  spiritual  fact,  and  no  conceivable 
amount  of  evidence  that  was  merely  material  could 
prove  it ;  spiritual  things  must  be  spiritually  dis- 
cerned. And  so  the  personality  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
its  own  self-evidence.  *  Which  of  you  convinceth 
Me  of  sin  ?  *  He  asks,  and  '  If  I  speak  the  truth,  why 
do  ye  not  believe  Me  ? '  A  sinless  man  must  speak 
the  truth,  and  therefore  be  what  He  asserts  Himself. 
He  appeals  to  His  character  to  substantiate  His 
claim  :  bids  men  look  at  Him  and  recognize  that 
He  must  be  what  He  says.  Now  such  an  appeal 
is  directly  addressed  to  the  spiritual  insight  of  His 
hearers,  and  can  only  succeed  where  that  insight 
exists.  It  was  rejected  as  a  matter  of  course  by 
those  who  did  not  know  goodness  when  they  saw 
it ;  the  self-satisfied  or  sensual  men  who  assumed 
bad  motives  for  good  actions  ;  the  morally  and 
spiritually  blind.  But  it  was  accepted  by  His 
faithful  followers,  His  intimate  friends  of  every  day ; 


88  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

the  men  and  women  whom  His  glance  had  kindled, 
and  His  voice  had  quickened  to  new  life ;  and  in 
whose  souls,  as  they  looked  and  listened,  insight 
arose  out  of  much  love.  And  it  was  this  inner  circle 
of '  witnesses  '  that  were  gradually  trained  by  Jesus 
Christ,  first  to  believe  in  Him,  and  then  to  under- 
stand Him,  and  finally  to  proclaim  Him  to  the 
world. 

This  then  was  the  primary  proof,  the  essential 
evidence  of  the  Incarnation ;  the  self-revelation  of 
a  person  to  persons.  But  it  was  unquestionably 
accompanied,  as  Christians  believe,  by  works  of 
superhuman  power,  and  sealed  by  the  crowning 
miracle  of  resurrection  from  the  dead.  The  attempt 
to  deny  these  miracles,  or  to  reject  the  Gospels  on 
account  of  them,  lands  us  amid  worse  problems 
than  those  which  it  seeks  to  solve.  For  we  cannot 
eliminate  from  history  either  the  person  or  the  work 
of  Christ ;  and  the  more  we  discredit  the  recorded 
account  of  them,  the  more  hopelessly  perplexing 
does  their  supremacy  become. 

But  if  the  Incarnation  was  a  fact,  and  Jesus  Christ 
was  what  He  claimed  to  be,  His  miracles  so  far 
from  being  improbable,  will  appear  the  most  natural 
things  in  the  world.  For  no  one  will  deny,  that  in 
this  case.  He  could  have  worked  them  ;  and  when 
we  look  at  them,  it  seems  likely  that  He  would; 
for  they  harmonize  completely  with  His  whole 
character  and  work, — being  mainly  acts  of  charity 


iv]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE   IN  MAN  89 

and  mercy,  either  to  the  bodies  or  the  souls  of  men  ; 
and  at  the  same  time  profoundly  symbolical  of 
spiritual  truth.  They  are  indeed  so  essentially  a 
part  of  the  character  depicted  in  the  Gospels,  that 
without  them  that  character  would  entirely  dis- 
appear. They  flow  naturally  from  a  Person  who, 
despite  His  obvious  humanity,  impresses  us  through- 
out as  being  at  home  in  two  worlds.  Moreover  the 
possessor  of  these  miraculous  powers  is  described 
as  tempted  to  misuse  them.  No  one,  who  reads  the 
account  of  the  temptation,  can  suppose  for  a  moment 
that  it  was  related  with  any  reference  to  the  credi- 
bility of  miracles.  But  for  that  very  reason  its 
indirect  bearing  on  their  credibility  is  great ;  for 
nothing  can  suggest  more  forcibly  that  the  miracu- 
lous power  was  real,  than  the  statement  incidentally 
made,  that  it  was  the  subject  of  temptation ;  with 
the  further  implication  that  in  many  cases  it  was 
consciously  present  but  unused.  The  issue  also  of 
this  temptation  tallies,  in  a  very  remarkable  degree, 
with  the  nature  of  the  miracles  recorded  in  the 
Gospels.  One  or  two  indeed  of  those  miracles 
may  seem,  as  Dr.  Newman  says,  '  more  or  less  im- 
probable, being  unequal  in  dignity  to  the  rest ' ;  and 
it  has  been  suggested  in  consequence  that  they  may 
be  apocryphal.  But  Dr.  Newman's  own  view  is 
critically  quite  as  reasonable,  that  '  they  are  sup- 
ported by  the  system  in  which  they  are  found,  as 
being  a  few  out  of  a  multitude,  and  therefore  but 


90  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

exceptions  (and  as  we  suppose  but  apparent  excep- 
tions) to  the  general  rule.'  And  with  these  question- 
able exceptions, there  is  a  dignity,  a  beauty,  a  reserve 
of  power,  a  restriction  of  use,  a  depth  of  spiritual 
significance,  in  the  miracles  attributed  to  Christ, 
which  makes  us  feel  that  they  are  not  merely  con- 
gruous with  His  whole  personality,  but  part  of  it. 
We  cannot  separate  the  wonderful  life,  or  the  won- 
derful teaching,  from  the  wonderful  works.  They 
involve  and  interpenetrate,  and  presuppose  each 
other,  and  form  in  their  indissoluble  combination 
one  harmonious  picture.  But  that  picture,  to  repeat 
once  more  the  old  but  unanswerable  dilemma, 
cannot  by  any  ingenuity  be  construed  into  the  mere 
likeness  of  a  man ;  while  it  is  the  most  adequate 
portrait  that  imagination  can  conceive  of  an  Incar- 
nate God.  It  is  not  indeed  the  kind  of  Incarnation 
that  if  left  to  ourselves  we  should  have  invented  ; 
but  for  that  very  reason  it  is  the  kind  that  must 
be  true. 

This,  then,  was  the  original  evidence  on  which 
the  Incarnation  was  received.  It  was  the  gradual 
self-revelation  of  a  Person  to  spiritually  minded 
persons.  But  among  the  attributes  of  this  Person 
was  included  the  power  of  working  miracles;  and 
there  cannot  be  a  shadow  of  doubt  that  this  was 
an  integral  element  in  the  total  impression  which 
He  produced.  His  miracles  did  not  prove  His 
character,  but  they  essentially  confirmed  the  claim 


iv]  DIVINE   IMMANENCE   IN  MAN  91 

which  His  character  meanwhile  predisposed  men  to 
accept. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  these  miracles  cannot 
appeal  with  such  force  to  us,  as  they  once  did  to 
contemporary  eyes.  But  the  very  same  lapse  of 
time,  which  has  diminished  their  effect,  has  increased 
that  of  another  kind  of  evidence.  For  every  suc- 
cessive century,  that  weakens  the  weight  of  bygone 
miracle,  intensifies  the  wonder  of  bygone  prophecy. 
And  the  Gospels  are  full  of  prophecy.  Jesus  Christ 
speaks  with  an  absolute  authoritative  certainty  of 
the  everlasting  nature  of  the  kingdom  which  He 
came  to  found.  'The  gates  of  hell  shall  not  pre- 
vail against  it ' ;  *  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass 
away,  but  My  words  shall  not  pass  away  * ;  and 
*  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even  unto  the  end  of 
the  world.'  These  and  similar  utterances  are  only 
indicative  of  His  entire  attitude  towards  the  remote 
future.  He  speaks  of  it  with  unconditional  certi- 
tude throughout.  He  is  come  to  inaugurate  a  change 
within  the  souls  of  men  which  shall  continue  to 
operate  till  the  end  of  time.  When  we  remember 
to  whom  this  promise  was  originally  made — a  few 
Jewish  fishermen  against  the  world,  and  those  but 
half  understanding  their  Master — the  boldness  of 
its  prophecy  is  apparent.  Yet  its  boldness  is  only 
equalled  by  its  truth.  For  after  overcoming  the 
world  for  nineteen  centuries,  in  the  precise  way 
that  He  foretold,  the  power  of  Christ  is  as  strong 


93  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

as  ever  upon  earth  to-day.  This  then  is  our 
modern  equivalent  for  the  signs  and  wonders  of  an 
earlier  age.  The  same  unique  Person  confronts 
us  with  the  same  question  as  of  old :  *  Which  of 
you  convinceth  Me  of  sin  ? '  and  *  If  I  speak  truth, 
why  do  ye  not  believe  Me  ? '  But  the  words  have 
a  new  significance  ;  for  included  in  their  scope  are 
nineteen  centuries  of  prophecy  fulfilled.  We  cannot 
regard  the  miracles  of  Christ  therefore  as  merely 
things  of  long  ago ;  for  they  are  integral  parts  of 
a  living  system  which  confronts  the  world  to-day, 
and  vindicates  its  wondrous  origin,  by  the  actual 
fact  of  its  present  wonder. 

Moreover,  it  must  be  remembered  that,  in  our 
Christian  view,  the  Incarnation  was  redemptive. 
It  was  an  atonement.  Sin,  or  moral  evil,  is  a  part 
of  our  total  human  experience,  which  philosophy 
is  bound  to  take  into  account ;  and  sin,  though 
primarily  due  to  the  will,  has  infected  the  bodily 
organism  of  the  whole  human  race ;  moral  and 
physical  depravity  mingling  with,  and  reacting  on 
each  other,  till  the  entire  resultant  may  be  spoken 
of  as  'the  body  of  this  death' — a  complex  whole  in 
which  it  is  impossible  to  disentangle  the  spiritual 
element  from  the  diseased  conditions  and  perverted 
functions  of  organ  and  tissue,  which  personal  and 
ancestral  sins  have  brought  about. 

And  this  amounts  to  saying,  that  there  is  one 
department  of  the  world  in  which  demonstrably 


iv]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE   IN  MAN  93 

the  reign  of  law  breaks  down.  The  motions  of  the 
stars  are  mathematically  accurate ;  vegetable  life 
pursues  its  annual  round  ;  animals,  till  man  has 
touched  them,  follow  the  instincts  of  their  kind. 
But  with  man  the  case  is  different.  His  appetites 
and  instincts  are  as  well  adapted  as  those  of  other 
animals  to  ensure  the  preservation  of  the  individual 
and  the  race,  yet  he  continually  misuses  them  to 
the  detriment  of  both.  His  reason  endows  him 
with  an  unique  capacity  for  promoting  the  progress 
of  his  kind,  yet  his  almost  habitual  use  of  it  is  self- 
regarding  and  anti-social.  His  will  is  conscious  of 
a  moral  law,  yet  disobeys  it.  His  whole  body  and 
soul  are  involved  in  one  complex,  composite  disease, 
due  to  the  violation  of  the  appropriate  and  natural 
laws  of  his  species.  This  condition  therefore  is 
quite  accurately  described  in  the  New  Testament 
as  lawlessness  {avoyila),  and  involves  a  real  breach 
of  universal  order — a  miracle  in  the  objectionable 
sense  of  the  term.  And  it  cannot  be  too  often 
repeated  that  this  condition  of  humanity  is  no 
philosophical  hypothesis,  or  theological  dogma,  but 
a  perfectly  familiar  fact  of  our  daily  experience; 
— an  experience  which  is  apt,  indeed,  to  be  over- 
looked in  our  more  ordinary  moments,  simply 
because  it  is  so  habitual,  but  which  from  time  to 
time  arrests  us  with  an  intensity  of  awfulness 
which  language  has  no  power  to  express.  It  is  at 
once  as  certain  as,  and  more  stupendous  than,  any 


94  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

Other  fact  that  we  know.  Now  a  primary  object 
of  the  Incarnation,  as  Christians  believe,  was  to 
remedy  this  lawlessness,  to  restore  this  inordinate 
state  of  humanity  to  order.  And  historically  this 
has  been  its  effect.  Real  Christians  in  every  age 
have  both  experienced  and  exhibited  the  gradual 
restitution  of  their  entire  personality  to  order.  The 
work  of  Jesus  Christ  therefore  comes  before  us,  not 
as  an  hypothetical  breach  of  nature's  laws,  but  as 
the  actual  restitution  of  these  laws  when  obviously, 
and  beyond  controversy,  broken — the  counteraction 
of  the  '  miracle '  of  sin. 

Now  this  consideration  does  not  of  course  affect 
the  physical  possibility  of  what  are  commonly 
called  miracles,  which  is  a  thing  that  few  sane 
men  would  deny.  But  it  profoundly  affects  the 
a  priori  probability  of  their  occurrence,  which  is 
really  the  point  at  issue  in  most  arguments  upon 
the  subject.  For,  instead  of  asking,  *  Is  God  likely 
to  interfere  with  His  own  laws?'  we  should  ask, 
*Is  He  not  likely  to  restore  them  when  already 
interfered  with  ? '  The  interference  is  a  fact ;  it  is 
daily  before  our  eyes ;  its  appalling  consequences 
are  within  us,  and  around  us.  Yet  it  is  an  anomaly 
in  the  universe,  and  the  more  we  learn  of  the 
otherwise  harmonious  order  of  that  universe,  the 
more  irresistibly  we  feel  that  such  a  fact  cannot 
be  final ;  and  thus  the  likelihood  of  God's  inter- 
vention assumes  the  highest  possible  probability. 


rv]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  95 

But  if  such  a  counteraction  of  sin  is  to  be  brought 
about,  it  must  be  by  the  production,  in  one  way 
or  another,  of  a  sinless  humanity ;  which  would 
be  in  harmony  with  the  order  of  the  universe. 
While  in  proportion  as  human  beings  are  out  of 
harmony  with  the  order  of  the  universe,  a  sinless 
person  would  not  only  appear,  but  be,  from  the 
human  point  of  view,  miraculous.  We  should  have 
no  standard  with  which  to  compare  Him,  and 
therefore  no  capacity  to  criticize  either  the  condi- 
tions of  His  existence,  or  the  range  of  His  powers. 
Now  all  this  has  an  important  bearing  upon  the 
miracles  recorded  in  the  Gospels.  First  and  fore- 
most among  these  miracles  stands  the  virgin  birth 
of  Christ.  And  the  real  ground  on  which  it  is 
rejected  is  the  a  priori  one  of  its  intrinsic  improba- 
bility. For  the  various  mythological  and  critical 
considerations  which  are  adduced  against  it  are  all 
dependent  upon  and  subsidiary  to  this.  But  in 
the  light  of  what  we  have  been  saying,  is  it 
intrinsically  improbable?  The  tradition  of  the 
early  Church  was  that  only  so  could  the  sinful 
entail  be  broken  off ;  and  that  at  a  time  when  the 
relation  of  soul  and  body  was  conceived  as  far  less 
intimate  than  we  now  know  it  to  be.  But  with 
our  modern  knowledge  of  their  mutual  interdepen- 
dence, it  is  doubly  impossible  to  conceive  that 
natural  human  generation  should  issue  in  anything 
else  than  a  contaminated  personality.     It  may  be 


96  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

urged  that  we  have  no  reason  to  think  otherwise, 
even  in  the  case  of  a  virgin  birth.  But  the  cases 
are  widely  different.  For  of  natural  generation  we 
have  positive  knowledge,  based  on  universal  experi- 
ence, that  it  does  as  a  fact  issue  in  a  sinful  person. 
Whereas  of  virgin  birth  we  have  no  positive  know- 
ledge ;  it  is  wholly  outside  our  experience ;  we 
can  only  conjecture  what  its  consequence  would 
be.  And  in  the  absence  of  all  knowledge,  it  is 
a  perfectly  conceivable  conjecture,  that  a  mode  of 
birth  from  which  an  essential  factor  of  ordinary 
heredity  is  absent,  should  involve  independence 
from  hereditary  taint. 

When,  therefore,  we  find  a  virgin  birth  asserted 
in  Christian  history  and  tradition,  there  can  be  no 
possible  probability  against  it.  Given  ordinary 
human  nature  alone,  it  would  be  impossible ;  but 
given  an  Incarnation,  whose  object  was  to  introduce 
a  sinless  personality  into  the  world — to  which  an 
immaculate  body  is  as  essential  as  an  uncontami- 
nated  soul — its  congruity,  and  therefore  its  prob- 
ability, are  obvious.  In  a  word,  it  can  only  be 
rejected  on  a  priori  grounds  ;  and  these  grounds 
rest  on  the  assumption  that  sinful  humanity  is 
normal ;  but  once  recognize  that  it  is  abnormal, 
an  anomaly  in  the  universe ;  a  priori  objections 
vanish  and  historic  tradition  resumes  its  sway. 
A  complete  break  with  sinful  heredity  is  of  the 
very  essence  of  the  Incarnation :   and  the  account 


iv]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN    MAN  97 

of  the  method  of  that  breach  which  has  come  down 
to  us,  rests  on  precisely  the  same  evidence  as  our 
account  of  the  Incarnation  itself. 

Then  there  are  the  miracles  of  healing  which 
occupy  so  prominent  a  place  in  the  Gospels.  These 
seem  to  many  minds  more  credible,  as  being  con- 
ceivably capable  of  naturalistic  explanation.  But 
it  should  be  noticed  that,  however  far  such  conjec- 
tural explanation  may  carry  us,  it  does  not  reach 
the  root  of  the  matter.  Christ  emphasizes  the 
connexion  between  sin  and  disease,  as  two  aspects 
of  one  disordered  personality;  and  connects  His 
healing  of  the  one  with  His  forgiving  of  the  other, 
as  parts  of  the  same  redemptive  work.  He  does 
not  appear  as  the  mere  pitiful  physician  of  excep- 
tional ability;  but  as  having  power  on  earth  to 
forgive  sins,  and  therefore  to  remedy  their  physical 
effects.  He  claims  to  have  come  to  destroy  the 
dominion  of  evil  in  the  world,  by  striking  once  for 
ever  at  its  spiritual  root ;  and  as  the  sin  of  the 
soul  has  grown  incorporate  in  the  flesh,  He  heals 
diseases,  not  only  in  mercy,  but  in  actual  mani- 
festation of  the  change  which  He  is  come  to  effect 
in  the  entire  personality  of  man.  In  other  words, 
while  Christ's  acts  of  physical  healing  are  quite 
subordinate  to  His  spiritual  teaching,  and  are 
treated  by  Him  as  such,  yet  they  are  not  merely 
incidental  acts  of  mercy ;  they  are  an  integral  part 
of  His  entire  work,  an  essential   element   in  the 

H 


98  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  [chap. 

total  impression  which  He  plainly  designed  to 
create,  that  He  was  Lord  of  the  material  as  well 
as  of  the  spiritual  order,  and  came  not  merely  to 
teach,  but  to  exercise  absolute  authority  over  the 
bodies  as  well  as  the  souls  of  men. 

The  same  principle  underlies  what  may  be  called 
the  cosmic  miracles,  those,  that  is,  which  more  ob- 
viously imply  power  over  the  general  processes  of 
the  material  universe;  with  which  should  be  classed 
the  raising  of  the  dead.  These  evince  superhuman 
power,  but  power  which  moves  along  rational  lines, 
and  is  controlled.  Christ  sternly  refuses  to  work 
them  for  a  personal  end,  or  to  gratify  a  faithless 
curiosity  which  they  would  not  convince.  They 
have  always  some  tender,  merciful,  spiritual  pur- 
pose ;  and  the  momentary  marvel  is  carefully  linked 
again  to  the  customary  course  of  nature,  in  a  way 
to  suggest  that  it  is  nowise  intended  to  supersede 
ordinary  law.  Food  is  multiplied,  but  its  fragments 
are  immediately  ordered  to  be  economized.  The 
dead  are  raised,  but  their  friends  are  bidden  to  feed 
them,  and  release  them  from  the  cerements  of  the 
grave.  There  is  to  be  no  unpractical  lingering  in 
a  world  of  wonder :  human  life  must  at  once  resume 
its  course.  And  the  total  picture  is  not  of  one  who 
recklessly  worked  wonders,  such  as  ignorant  ages 
have  loved  to  attribute  to  their  heroes ;  but  of  one 
who,  possessing  superhuman  power,  only  employed 
it  with  extreme  reserve ;  to  manifest  and  symbolize 


iv]  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN  99 

the  superhuman  character  of  His  personality  and 
work. 

Finally,  there  is  the  crowning  miracle  of  the 
Resurrection,  on  which  the  early  Church  laid  so 
much  stress.  It  is  easy  enough  to  say  that  the 
continued  existence  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  not  His 
corporeal  Resurrection,  is  the  important  thing  to 
believe.  But  this  ignores  the  previous  question, 
'  Who  and  What  was  Jesus  Christ  ?  Did  He,  in  the 
way  that  we  have  stated,  connect  disease  and  death 
with  sin,  and  control  material  things  at  His  will? 
Was  His  absolute  supremacy  over  death  as  well  as 
sin  an  integral  part  of  the  claim  which  He  made, 
and  which  He  promised  to  substantiate?  and  is 
matter  an  essential  element  in  human  personality 
as  we  know  it  ? '  If  so,  whence  comes  the  presump- 
tion that  He  either  could  not,  or  would  not,  re- 
assume  His  immaculate  body,  and  indefinitely 
extend  its  powers  ?  Simply  from  the  fact  that  all 
other  human  bodies  decay  in  the  grave,  and  are 
turned  again  to  their  earth.  But  all  other  human 
bodies  are  intimately  contaminated  by  sin,  whereas 
Christ's  is,  ex  hypothesis  immaculate  ;  and  while  we 
know  that  throughout  life  the  soul  moulds  and 
modifies  the  body,  we  have  no  means  whatever  of 
knowing  what  the  nature  or  extent  of  this  modifi- 
cation would  be,  when  induced,  not  only  by  a  sinless 
soul,  but  by  a  divine  personality,  on  a  sinless  body. 
We  cannot  conceive  that  anything  short  of  dissolu- 
H  2 


zoo  DIVINE  IMMANENCE  IN  MAN 

tion  should  eradicate  the  taint  from  the  sinful  body. 
It  must  be  unmade  if  it  is  to  be  remade  at  all. 
But  a  sinless  body,  moulded  by  a  sinless  soul,  is  in 
no  such  case ;  and  we  have  no  reason  whatever  to 
suppose  that  it  might  not  be  resumed  at  will;  while 
such  a  resumption  would  be  the  appropriate — the 
obviously  appropriate — climax  to  the  whole  of 
Christ's  previous  attitude  towards  matter ;  the  final 
manifestation  of  His  personal  triumph  over  the 
totality  of  sin — its  consequence  as  well  as  its  cause 
— and  thus  the  earnest  of  His  power  to  restore 
man's  entire  personality  to  ultimate  order. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   INCARNATION    AND    MIRACLES 

WE  have  urged,  in  the  last  chapter,  in  general 
defence  of  the  Christian  tradition,  that  the 
miracles  recorded  in  the  Gospels  are  not  merely 
inseparable  from  their  context,  but  also  profoundly 
harmonious  with  our  conception  of  the  Incarnation 
as  a  whole.  But  there  is  a  class  of  thinkers  in  the 
present  day  who  tend,  in  some  sense,  to  believe 
the  Incarnation,  and  yet  to  disbelieve  in  miracles ; 
and  who  would  therefore  substitute  for  the  Christian 
tradition  a  non- miraculous  Christianity,  as  being 
more  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  age. 
Now  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  opposition 
to  miracles  is  as  old  as  Christian  history,  and  has 
passed  through  many  phases  which  the  Christian 
creed  has  outlived  and  survived.  And  this  natu- 
rally leads  us  to  ask  whether  its  present  phase  is 
really  final ;  or  only  one  more  wave  of  negative 
opinion  whose  strength  is  already  beginning  to  be 
spent  ?  The  modern  form  of  objection  to  miracles 
comes  chiefly,  of  course,  from  Spinoza  and  Hume, 


loa        THE  INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES       [chap. 

than  whom  it  has  never  found,  nor  is  ever  likely  to 
find,  abler  exponents.  But  its  particular  revival  in 
the  present  day  would  seem,  especially,  to  date 
from  the  time  when  'uniformity'  became  the 
dominant  category  of  thought ;  when  logic  was 
being  based  upon  the  '  law  of  uniformity ' ;  when 
uniformitarianism  was  overpressed  in  geology ;  and 
natural  selection  was  allowed,  in  consequence, 
unlimited  millions  of  ages  for  its  action  ;  with  the 
general  result  that  present  phenomena  were  too 
readily  assumed  to  be  adequate  criteria  of  the  past. 
And  at  a  time  like  this,  when  the  popular  logicians 
laid  stress  on  the  uniformity  of  nature,  and  yet 
admitted  that  this  so-called  law  could  in  no  way 
be  proved,  but  must  be  'begged,'  Dr.  Mozley  de- 
fended miracles  by  accepting  this  position,  and 
showing  that  we  could  give  no  reason  whatever  for 
our  belief  in  the  order  of  nature  ;  and  consequently 
that  an  interference  with  that  order  could  not  be 
called  irrational ;  it  might  conflict  with  our  expec- 
tation, but  not  with  our  reason.  And  this  was 
a  valid  argumentum  ad  hominem ;  a  valid  answer 
to  any  rejection  of  miracles,  drawn  from  the  uni- 
formity of  nature.  But  that  phrase,  of  shallow 
meaning  and  questionable  value  (seeing  that  no  two 
things  in  nature  were  ever  exactly  alike),  has  now, 
to  a  great  extent,  lost  its  vogue.  There  was  an 
undue  simplicity  about  it,  which  has  been  consider- 
ably modified  by  the  subsequent  progress  of  science. 


v]  THE  INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES  103 

For  our  increase  of  scientific  knowledge  has  also 
increased  our  scientific  agnosticism,  by  widening 
the  horizon  of  what  remains  to  be  known ;  and 
men  are  becoming  far  more  ready  to  recognize  that 
'there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than 
are  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy.'  And  we  now 
think  less  of  the  uniformity  than  of  the  unity  of 
nature  ;  that  unity  which  the  very  word  '  universe ' 
implies ;  the  intimate  correlation  between  the  whole 
and  its  parts,  between  the  parts  and  their  whole ; 
which  Tennyson's  '  flower  in  the  crannied  wall '  is  so 
often  quoted  to  illustrate : — 

'Little  flower— but  if  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 

I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is.' 

• 

At  first  sight  this  conception  may  seem  to  make 
the  difficulty  of  miracles  become  graver,  since  it 
increases  the  magnitude  of  the  'interference'  or 
'alteration'  which  they  involve.  But  this  is  not 
in  reality  its  ultimate  effect.  For  uniformity  may 
be  merely  mechanical ;  but  unity  is  essentially  a 
spiritual  conception.  '  The  ego  is  the  only  unity,' 
says  Royard  Collier,  '  that  is  given  us  immediately 
by  nature.  We  do  not  meet  with  unity  in  sensible 
experience,  but  the  mind  finds  it  within  itself,  and 
thence  transfers  it  to  the  outer  world  by  analogy.' 
We  can  easily  see  that  this  is  so  :  for  if,  by  an  effort 
of  abstraction,  we  separate  the  material  element  in 


I04         THE  INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES      [chap. 

experience  from  the  spiritual,  what  is  it  that  we 
find :  a  succession  of  passing  phenomena,  external 
to  each  other ;  whose  every  fresh  phase  and 
moment  obliterates  the  last ;  like  the  waves  upon 
a  torrent,  or  the  transformations  of  a  dream ;  a 
world  of  which  the  old  sceptical  dictum  would 
be  true,  -navra  pel  koI  ovbev  fxtvei,  '  all  things  are  in 
perpetual  flux,  and  there  is  no  permanence  at  all.* 
In  actual  life,  however,  we  do  not  make  this 
abstraction  ;  but  habitually  and  instinctively  read 
our  own  spiritual  unity  into  the  manifold  variety 
of  things.  We  connect  and  correlate  the  various 
impressions  of  our  senses,  things  as  different  as 
scent  and  sound  and  touch ;  we  look  before  and 
after,  and  link  the  present  to  the  past, — the  past 
which  would  otherwise  have  ceased  to  be ;  we 
gather  and  group  and  compare,  within  the  mirror  of 
our  mind,  the  scattered  phenomena  of  distant  space  ; 
we  weave  out  of  what  by  themselves  would  be 
disconnected,  incoherent  elements,  an  unity,  a 
system,  a  whole.  But  in  so  doing  we  are  not 
creating  but  only  recreating  for  ourselves,  a  world 
which  already  exists  without  us.  That  world  is 
not  a  chaotic  flux,  as  it  would  be  if  merely  material, 
but  an  orderly  system  of  things.  Atoms  combine 
in  mathematical  proportion ;  stars  move  in  their 
courses  by  mechanical  rule  ;  organic  life  in  plant 
and  animal  is  minutely,  elaborately  teleological ; 
man   is  guided   and   developed   by  a  moral   law. 


v]  THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES  105 

And  the  result  is  a  coherent  universe  whose  ele- 
ments are  intimately  bound  together,  by  the  mutual 
ministrations  of  all  to  each  and  each  to  all.  But 
all  these  links  are  obviously  spiritual ;  and  analo- 
gous to  what  we  find  within  ourselves.  And  thus 
the  unity  of  nature  must  be  due  to  the  action  of 
a  spiritual  power.  The  phrase  indeed  has  no  other 
meaning ;  for  we  cannot  conceive  a  merely  material 
unity ;  since  spirit  is  the  only  unifying  agent  that 
we  know.  Thus  the  more  science  impresses  upon 
us  the  unity  of  nature,  the  more  does  it,  by  impli- 
cation, assert  that  nature  is  rooted  and  grounded  in 
spirit.  Now  spirit,  as  we  have  repeatedly  seen, 
affirms  the  absolute  supremacy  of  its  own  ends. 
It  claims  as  of  right  to  govern,  and  never  to 
subserve  matter ;  to  use  matter  for  spiritual  pur- 
poses, and  never  the  reverse.  And  whenever  the 
reverse  takes  place,  and  we  see  spiritual  beings 
using  their  powers  in  pursuit  of  animal,  and  there- 
fore material  ends,  we  recognize  at  once  that  they 
are  contradicting  the  very  essence  of  their  nature, 
and  are  therefore  unrighteous  or  wrong. 

If  then  the  whole  of  nature  is  rooted  and  grounded 
in  spirit,  and  the  primary  characteristic  of  spirit  is 
this  absolute  self-assertion,  the  antecedent  prob- 
ability of  miracles  is  immensely  increased.  In  the 
days  of  deism,  when  nature  was  regarded  as  a 
machine  set  going  once  for  all,  interference  with 
its  regularity  may  well  have  seemed  impossible; 


io6         THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES      [chap. 

and  the  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  uniformity  of 
nature  was  largely  a  legacy  from  those  days.  But 
if  nature  is  only  sustained  by  its  intimate  union 
with  spirit,  and  spirit  is  what  we  have  above  de- 
scribed, it  is  no  wonder  that  the  processes  of  nature 
should  be  modified  for  an  adequate  spiritual  end. 

It  was  moreover  more  or  less  implied  in  the 
older  objection  to  miracles,  that  we  had  a  complete 
knowledge  of  the  processes  of  nature  ;  and  could 
therefore  see  that  there  was  no  room,  so  to  speak, 
for  the  miraculous  element  to  interver^e.  But  the 
more  we  recognize  that  nature  has  always  a 
spiritual  coefficient,  the  less  confident  does  this 
assurance  become.  For  in  this  case  all  causation, 
however  mechanical  upon  the  surface,  must  obvi- 
ously run  back  into  the  spiritual  region,  or  in 
other  words  be  ultimately  spiritual.  This  indeed 
is  a  conviction  which  has  been  gaining  ground  ever 
since  Hume's  analysis  of  causation.  We  have 
come  to  see  with  increasing  clearness  that  physical 
causes  are  not  causes  at  all,  in  the  sense  which  our 
reason  or  causal  instinct  demands.  They  are  only 
antecedents  or  conditions  that  transmit  causation 
which  they  cannot  themselves  originate. 

For  our  whole  notion  of  cause  is  confessedly 
derived  from  what  takes  place  within  ourselves. 
As  self-conscious  beings  we  can  be  also  self-deter- 
mined ;  we  can  frame  our  own  ideals,  fashion  our 
own  plans,  choose  which,  of  many  suggested  motives, 


v]  THE  INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES  107 

we  will  make  our  own ;  and  all  this  without  any 
compulsion  from  without.  We  can  then  realize 
our  ideals,  prosecute  our  plans,  pursue  our  purpose 
in  the  outer  world  ;  and  in  so  doing,  initiate  events 
of  which  our  own  will  is  the  veritable  starting- 
point,  since  it  includes  both  their  '  how '  and  their 
'  why/  is  at  once  both  their  origin  and  explanation. 
Thus  our  will  is  an  agent  whose  reason  for  action  is 
contained  within  itself,  and  as  such  a  self-explana- 
tory agent.  When  we  have  traced  an  occurrence  to 
the  intervention  of  the  human  will,  we  are  at  once 
content.  It  is  fully  accounted  for.  We  know  not 
merely  how  it  began,  but  why,  (its  raison  d'iire) 
and  have  therefore  reached  its  absolute  beginning. 
This  then  is  the  source  of  our  conception  of  cause, 
and  this  is  what  we  mean  by  the  term : — something 
which  initiates  changes  without  external  compul- 
sion, and  therefore  out  of  its  own  inner  nature,  and 
is  hence  their  real  starting-point ;  a  self-determined 
and  therefore  self-conscious,  and  therefore  spiritual 
being.  And  this  is  what  we  postulate  in  the  uni- 
verse at  large,  when  we  say  that  it  must  have  a 
cause.  It  must  originate  in  a  will  which  is  its  own 
law,  and  therefore  its  own  explanation  {caussa  sut), 
or,  in  mediaeval  phrase,  a  being  whose  will  and 
intellect  are  one. 

And  it  is  only  in  the  light  of  this  postulate  that 
we  can  talk  of  secondary  or  natural  causes.  They 
are  parts  of  a  caused  whole  which  in  their  context 


io8  THE   INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES     [chap. 

partake  of  the  causality  of  that  whole,  and  therefore 
of  its  ultimate  spirituality ;  but  by  themselves  they 
are  not  causes  at  all,  but  merely  media  for  trans- 
mission of  causation.  *  We  never  exhaust  the  whole 
mass  of  conditions/  says  a  modem  logician, '  which 
produce  the  effect.  The  event  never  comes,  and  it 
never  could  come,  from  the  abstract  selection  which 
we  call  the  cause.  We  imply  the  presence  of 
unspecified  conditions,  but  since  these  are  normal 
we  omit  to  mention  them  ^'  And  foremost  among 
those  conditions  is  the  vital  connexion  of  the  uni- 
verse at  every  moment  with  its  first  cause  ;  for  this, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  what  its  unity  implies.  He 
sustains  it  in  being ;  and  the  mechanical  laws,  on 
which  what  we  commonly  call  natural  causation 
depends,  are,  as  Lotze  says,  not  'laws  which  the 
divine  action  "obeys"  but  which  it  really  at  each 
moment  creates.'  *  For  they  could  not  have 
existed  prior  to  God  as  a  code  to  which  He  accom- 
modated Himself ;  they  can  only  be  the  expression 
to  us  of  the  mode  in  which  He  works.' 

'And  though  He  thunder  by  law,  the  law  is  still 
His  voice  V 

Hume's  negative  criticism  of  causation  was,  as 
we  said,  the  involuntary  means  of  turning  thought 
into  the  above  direction.  For  it  was  impossible  to 
rest  content  with  his  sceptical  conclusions,  which 

*  Bradley,  Logic.  '  Tennyson,  Higher  Pantheism. 


v]  THE  INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES  109 

would  have  made  science  and  philosophy  alike 
impossible ;  and  in  the  process  of  meeting  them, 
Kant  and  others  came  to  recognize  the  fact  that 
the  causal  nexus  is  ultimately  spiritual.  But  Male- 
branche,  long  before  Hume,  had  expressed  both 
sides  of  the  case  with  admirable  clearness.  *  Les 
causes  naturellesl  he  says, '  ne  sont  point  de  v6ri- 
tables  causes,  ce  ne  sont  que  des  causes  occasionnelles^ 
qui  n'agissent  que  par  la  force  et  Tefficace  de  la 
volont6  de  Dieu*.' 

But  if  the  action  of  natural  causes  is  thus  depen- 
dent on  divine  concurrence,  or  is  in  other  words 
an  aspect  of  the  divine  energy  at  work,  our  previous 
conclusion  is  further  fortified.  For  so  far  from 
knowing  the  whole  of  any  physical  process,  it  is 
obvious  that  we  only  know  a  part — the  appearance 
in  fact  or  part  that  meets  the  eye :  while  the 
spiritual  power  which  from  moment  to  moment 
produces  natural  phenomena,  may  be  reasonably 
conceived  to  change  them,  on  occasion,  for  an 
adequate  end.  We  shall  not  need  therefore  at  the 
present  day  to  use  Mozley's  argumenium  ad  homi- 
netn — that  belief  in  the  uniformity  of  nature  is  an 
irrational  impulse — except  with  those  who  are  still 
slaves  to  that  uniformity.  On  the  contrary,  we 
recognize  that  the  unity  of  nature,  and  the  causal 
connexion  of  its  parts,  is  a  rational  conviction,  but 
one  which  inevitably  lands  us  in  the  spiritual  region ; 
*  Malebranche,  De  la  Methode,  vi.  ii.  3. 


no         THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES      [chap. 

and  therefore  makes  it  easy  to  believe  that  the 
spirit  which  habitually  controls  matter,  may  some- 
times exhibit  its  supremacy  in  extraordinary  ways. 
Human  analogy — and  it  is  the  highest  we  have — is 
entirely  in  favour  of  this.  For  the  greater  a  man 
is,  the  more  methodical  and  consistent  he  will  be  in 
all  the  usual  situations  of  life ;  one  whose  conduct 
can  be  calculated,  and  whose  character  relied  on. 
But,  in  a  crisis,  the  same  greatness  will  be  shown 
by  ability  to  extemporize  and  courage  to  innovate  ; 
while  lesser  men  are  paralyzed  by  slavish  adher- 
ence to  routine.  The  great  man  does  not  contra- 
dict himself,  but,  for  a  new  purpose,  calls  new 
powers  into  play,  and  at  the  next  moment  is  as 
regular,  as  orderly,  as  punctual  as  ever :  the  fact  that 
he  has  habits  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  he  is  free. 
So  the  habitual  course  of  nature,  which  alone  makes 
life  and  knowledge  possible,  may  well  be  traversed 
by  lightning  flashes  from  the  spiritual  world,  if  both 
alike  are  being  guided  by  one  power  to  one  end, 
and  that  end,  in  the  strict  sense,  supernatural. 

Hence  it  is  obvious  that  the  probability  of 
miracles  cannot  be  settled  by  a  rough  and  ready 
appeal  to  experience,  but  depends  upon  the  kind 
of  experience  which  we  include  under  the  term  ;  or 
in  other  words  upon  the  presuppositions  with  which 
we  approach  experience.  This  is  forcibly  expressed 
by  Dr.  Newman,  in  a  passage  which  may  be  worth 
quoting,  from  his  Essay  on  Miracles. 


v]  THE  INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES  iii 

'  When  the  various  antecedent  objections  which 
ingenious  men  have  urged  against  miracles  are 
brought  together,  they  will  be  found  nearly  all  to 
arise  from  forgetfulness  of  the  existence  of  moral 
laws.  In  their  zeal  to  perfect  the  laws  of  matter 
they  most  unphilosophically  overlook  a  more  sub- 
lime system,  which  contains  disclosures  not  only  of 
the  Being,  but  of  the  Will  of  God.  Thus,  Hume 
observes,  "  Though  the  Being  to  whom  the  miracle 
is  ascribed  be  Almighty,  it  does  not,  upon  that 
account,  become  a  whit  more  probable,  since  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  know  the  attributes  or  actions 
of  such  a  Being,  otherwise  than  from  the  experience 
which  we  have  of  His  productions  in  the  usual 
course  of  nature.  This  still  reduces  us  to  past  ob- 
servation, and  obliges  us  to  compare  the  instances 
of  the  violation  of  truth  in  the  testimony  of  men 
with  those  of  the  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature  by 
miracles,  in  order  to  judge  which  of  them  is  most 
likely  and  probable."  The  moral  government  of 
God,  with  the  course  of  which  the  miracle  entirely 
accords,  is  altogether  kept  out  of  sight  ...  And  a 
recent  author  adopts  a  similarly  partial  and  incon- 
clusive mode  of  reasoning,  when  he  confuses  the 
Christian  miracles  with  fables  of  apparitions  and 
witches,  and  would  examine  them  on  the  strict 
principle  of  those  legal  forms  which  from  their 
secular  object  go  far  to  exclude  all  religious  dis- 
cussion of  the  question.      Such  reasoners  seem  to 


ria         THE   INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES      [chap. 

suppose,  that  when  the  agency  of  the  Deity  is 
introduced  to  account  for  miracles,  it  is  the  illogical 
introduction  of  an  unknown  cause,  a  reference  to 
a  mere  name,  the  offspring,  perhaps,  of  popular 
superstition ;  or,  if  more  than  a  name,  to  a  cause 
that  can  be  known  only  by  means  of  the  physical 
creation ;  and  hence  they  consider  religion  as  founded 
in  the  mere  weakness  or  eccentricity  of  the  intellect, 
not  in  actual  intimations  of  a  divine  government  as 
contained  in  the  moral  world  ^.* 

What  this  means  is  not  that  the  moral  and  mate- 
rial order  are  in  any  contrast  or  contradiction ;  they 
are  obviously  and  incontestably  part  and  parcel  of 
one  and  the  self-same  system.  But  whereas  we 
know  that  system,  in  its  material  aspect,  only  from 
Avithout — its  surface,  so  to  speak,  and  perhaps  an 
inch  or  two  below ;  there  is  one  point  at  which  we 
penetrate  within  it,  and  feel  that  we  are  nearer  to 
the  heart  of  things ;  and  that  is  our  personal  expe- 
rience of  our  own  internal  state — 

'  I   myself  am   what    I    know    not — ignorance 

which  proves  no  bar 
To  the  knowledge  that  I  am,  and,  since  I  am, 

can  recognize 
What  to  me  is  pain  and  pleasure  ;  this  is  sure, 
the  rest — surmise  ^. 

*  Newman,  Essay  on  Miracles,  §  3,  p.  20. 
^  Browning,  La  Saisias. 


vj  THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES  113 

Mere  surmise :    my  own  experience — that  is 
knowledge,  once  again ' ! ' 

And  at  the  very  root  of  this  personal  experience, 
which  is  our  only  first-hand  knowledge,  we  find  the 
moral  law,  with  its  imperious  claim  to  subordinate 
all  things  to  itself.  Thus  what  I  know  to  be  at 
once  the  most  certain,  and  the  most  fundamental 
fact  of  experience  is  the  moral  law  with  its  claim  to 
supremacy.  There  is  nothing  irrational,  therefore, 
in  believing  that,  on  occasion,  in  deference  to  that 
claim,  the  material  order  may  give  way  to  the 
moral,  and 

'Miracle  was  duly  wrought 
When,  save  for  it,  no  faith  was  possible. 
Whether  a  change  were  wrought  i'  the  shows 

o*  the  world, 
Whether    the    change    came    from    our    minds 

which  see 
Of  the  shows  o'  the  world  so  much  as  and  no 

more 
Than  God  wills  for  His  purpose  V 

This  then  is,  in  brief,  our  position.  We  fully 
grant  that  nature  is  uniform,  in  the  sense  that 
similar  causes,  under  similar  conditions,  will  always 
produce  similar  effects ;  but  we  entirely  deny  that 

*  Browning,  La  Saisiaz. 

*  Id.  A  Death  in  the  Desert. 

I 


114         THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES      [chap. 

this  principle  justifies  the  assertion  that  what  does 
not  happen  to-day  cannot  ever  have  happened : 
firstly,  because  we  never  know  all  the  conditions 
even  of  what  is  happening  to-day,  and  much  less 
of  what  was  happening  centuries  ago ;  secondly, 
because  among  those  conditions  is  the  presence  of 
the  spiritual  power,  on  which  their  existence  and 
operation  depends ;  and  which  as  spiritual,  and 
therefore  rational  and  free,  can  initiate  a  change  at 
any  point — a  change  not  against  nature,  but  against 
our  ordinary  experience  of  nature, — non  contra 
naturam  sed  contra  quam  est  nota  naiura,  as 
Augustine  well  expressed  it  long  ago. 

On  this  presence  and  operation  of  the  absolute 
spirit  in  all  cases  of  causation  Lotze  has  some  re- 
marks, which  are  precisely  to  our  point ; — 

'  We  are  not,*  he  says,  '  to  picture  the  absolute, 
placed  in  some  remote  region  of  extended  space,  and 
separated  from  the  world  of  its  creations,  so  that  its 
influence  has  to  retraverse  a  distance  and  make  a 
journey  in  order  to  reach  things  ;  for  its  indivisible 
unity,  omnipresent  at  every  point,  would  fill  this 
space  as  well  as  others.  . .  .  Wherever  in  apparent 
space  an  organic  germ  has  been  formed,  at  that 
very  spot  and  not  removed  from  it  the  absolute  is 
present.  Nor  ...  is  it  simply  this  class  of  facts 
which  compels  us  to  assume  such  an  action  of  the 
absolute.    We  may  regard  the  process  by  which 


▼]  THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES         115 

things  that  possess  a  life  and  soul  are  formed  as 
something  unusual  and  superior  ;  but  the  presence 
of  the  absolute  which  makes  this  process  possible 
is  no  less  the  basis  necessarily  implied  in  the  most 
insignificant  interaction  of  any  two  atoms.  Nor 
again  do  we  think  of  its  presence  as  a  mere  uniform 
breath  which  penetrates  all  places,  and  this  par- 
ticular spot  among  them,  like  that  subtle,  formless, 
and  homogeneous  ether  from  which  many  strange 
theories  expect  the  vivification  of  matter  into  the 
most  various  forms ;  but  the  absolute  is  indivisibly 
present  >^th  the  whole  inner  wealth  of  its  nature 
in  this  particular  spot,  and  in  obedience  to  those 
laws  of  its  action  which  it  has  itself  laid  down, 
necessarily  makes  additions  to  the  simple  conjunc- 
tions of  those  elements  which  arc  themselves  only 
its  own  continuous  actions,  simple  additions  where 
the  conjunctions  are  simple,  additions  of  greater 
magnitude  and  value  where  they  are  more  compli- 
cated. Everywhere  it  draws  only  the  consequences, 
which  at  every  point  of  the  whole  belong  to  the 
premisses  it  has  previously  realized  at  that  point  ^' 

Now  the  Incarnation,  in  our  Christian  view  of  it, 
is  a  supreme  instance  of  this  action  of  the  Absolute ; 
the  Being  who  is  behind  all  things  therein  coming 
to  their  front,  and  exhibiting  as  a  necessary  part 
of  the  process   His   authoritative   relation   to  the 

*  Lotze,  MetaphysiCf  §  246. 
I  2 


n6        THE  INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES      [chap. 

world.  We  believe  it  primarily  for  a  combination 
of  moral  and  spiritual  reasons,  but  once  believed 
it  affects  our  whole  view  of  the  material  universe. 
For  it  has  a  cosmic,  as  well  as  a  human  significance. 
It  is  not  merely  an  event  in  the  history  of  man,  but 
an  event,  at  least  as  far  as  our  earth  is  concerned, 
in  the  history  of  matter ;  analogous  upon  a  higher 
plane  to  the  origin  of  life,  or  the  origin  of  person- 
ality ;  the  appearance  of  a  new  order  of  being  in  the 
world.    And  precisely  as,  in  Browning's  language, 

*  Man,  once  descried,  imprints  for  ever 
His  presence  on  all  lifeless  things  \' 
so 

'the  acknowledgement  of  God  in  Christ 
Accepted  by  thy  reason,  solves  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  earth  and  out  of  it'^.* 

That  is  to  say,  it  must  for  all  who  believe  it 
become  the  absolutely  central  truth  of  their  philo- 
sophy. Just  as  the  Copernican  astronomy,  or  the 
doctrine  of  evolution,  have  enlarged  and  modified 
our  views  of  the  universe,  so  the  Incarnation,  once 
accepted,  throws  a  new  light  upon  the  entire  world. 
For  on  the  one  hand,  against  mere  idealism,  it 
emphasizes  the  value  and  importance  of  matter,  as 
being  the  agent  through  which  God's  spiritual  pur- 
pose is  effected :  and  on  the  other  hand,  against 
mere  materialism,  it  interprets  this  value  and  im- 

'  Browning,  Paracelsus.         «  Id,  ^  Death  in  the  Desert. 


v]  THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES  117 

portance,  as  consisting  in  the  capability  to  subserve 
that  purpose.  Thus  while  rejecting  the  respective 
negations  of  idealism  and  materialism,  it  sanctions 
their  positive  elements — the  supremacy  of  spirit  and 
the  reality  of  matter ;  and  so  supplementing  each 
by  the  other,  combines  both  in  a  concrete  whole. 

This  view  of  the  Incarnation  is  sometimes, 
ignorantly,  regarded  as  if  it  were  only  an  ingenious 
afterthought  of  modern  apology.  But  that  is 
merely  because  it  sank  into  comparative  abeyance, 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  when  men  were  more 
occupied  with  negative  criticism  than  with  positive 
systems  of  thought.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  as 
old  as  Christianity :  it  is  latent,  not  to  say  patent, 
in  the  prologue  of  St.  John,  and  the  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul:  it  has  been  proclaimed  by  Christian 
philosophers,  in  every  philosophic  age :  and,  with 
the  revival  of  constructive  thinking,  it  has  of 
necessity  revived. 

To  object  that  revealed  truths  can  have  no 
speculative  value,  and  that  philosophy  cannot  take 
account  of  revelation,  as  such,  is  to  under-estimate 
the  range  of  philosophy.  For  philosophy  must 
deal  with  the  totality  of  knowledge.  It  contem- 
plates in  Plato's  phrase  *  all  time  and  all  existence.* 
It  cannot,  without  self-destruction,  ignore  any  kind 
of  fact.  But  if  there  has  been  a  revelation,  it  must 
have  brought  new  facts — and  those  important  ones 
— to  our  knowledge ;  and  once  within  the  field  of 


ir8         THE  INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES      [chap. 

knowledge,  they  are  of  necessity  within  the  field 
of  philosophy.  Thenceforth,  to  philosophize  without 
them  is  not  merely  to  leave  them  open  questions, 
but  implicitly  to  rule  them  out  of  court  as  being 
untrue;  while  to  philosophize  with  them  is  to  be 
modified  by  them,  in  the  way  and  degree  that  we 
have  described — to  make  the  Incarnation  the  centre 
of  our  speculation,  as  well  as  of  our  practical  life ; 
the  light  of  our  thoughts,  as  well  as  the  guide  of 
our  acts. 

But  even  so,  it  is  sometimes  asked,  can  we  not 
conceive  an  Incarnation  without  miracles;  and 
might  not  such  a  conception  be  equally  the  centre 
of  a  yet  very  different  view  of  the  world  ? 

Undoubtedly ;  within  limits  we  might  frame  such 
a  conception.  But  we  do  not  believe  in  the  Incar- 
nation because  we  can  conceive  it,  but  because  we 
have  a  conviction  that  it  happened.  And  the  only 
evidence  we  have  that  it  happened,  is  also  evidence 
that  it  happened  in  a  certain  way.  To  borrow 
from  that  evidence  the  general  notion  of  an  Incar- 
nation, and  then  proceed  to  clothe  it  in  the  colours 
of  our  own  imagination,  is  absurd.  And  the  only 
alternative  is  to  accept  the  miraculous  accompani- 
ment of  the  Incarnation  as  we  find  it,  and,  so  doing, 
to  view  the  world  in  its  light. 

There  is  one  further  question  to  which  these  con- 
siderations inevitably  lead. 

Why  do  not    miracles  happen   now?      If  the 


▼]  THE   INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES  119 

power  of  Christ  on  earth  is  as  real  now  as  in  the 
first  century,  why  should  it  not  be  accompanied  by 
similar  results  ?  Does  not  the  absence  of  miracle 
now,  from  the  only  Christian  life  that  we  can  really 
test,  go  far  to  disprove  its  presence  in  the  past? 
Now  this  question,  though  it  is  often  asked,  and 
constitutes  a  real  difficulty  to  many  minds,  tacitly 
assumes  that  in  accepting  the  miracles  of  Christ,  we 
accept  the  position  that  Christianity  was  meant  to 
be  a  miraculous  religion.  Whereas  the  precise 
converse  is  the  case.  We  regard  the  miracles  of 
Christ  as  unique  manifestations  of  His  unique 
personality :  things  which  indeed  we  could  not 
have  foreseen,  but  which  we  recognize,  when  once 
recorded,  as  eminently  congruous  with  His  life  and 
work.  He  claimed  to  be  superhuman,  and  the 
claim  required  substantiation  to  gain  a  hearing. 
Attention  had  to  be  arrested ;  expectation  had 
to  be  aroused ;  the  advent  of  a  new  era  had  to  be 
emphasized ;  and  that  in  an  age,  and  among 
a  people  that  was  ready  to  accept  miracles,  and 
therefore  to  whom  miracles  were  a  natural — not 
to  say  inevitable — mode  of  address.  Authority, 
absolute,  unqualified,  paramount  authority,  is  the 
essential  characteristic  of  the  life  of  Christ ;  and 
that  authority  must  needs  be  exhibited,  in  order  to 
be  received.  It  is  difficult  even  to  conceive  how 
otherwise  a  beginning  could  have  been  made. 
But  the   very  fact  that  the  miracles  of  Christ 


I20        THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES      [chap. 

seem,  from  this  point  of  view,  so  natural,  makes  it 
all  the  more  instructive  to  notice  the  severe  economy 
with  which  they  are  used.  He  never  once  employs 
them  to  relieve  His  personal  necessities,  but  lives 
and  suffers  in  strict  obedience  to  the  ordinary  laws 
of  nature.  He  refuses  to  work  them  to  confute 
enemies,  and  warns  His  disciples  that  after  all  they 
are  subordiniate  things.  He  carefully  connects 
them,  as  we  have  noticed  above,  with  the  customary 
course  of  life,  in  a  way  to  show  that  they  were  not 
meant  to  supersede  it : — e.  g.  *  Go  shew  thyself 
to  the  priest.' — *  Go  wash  in  Siloam.' — *  Gather  up 
the  fragments  that  remain.' — *  He  commanded  that 
something  should  be  given  her  to  eat.* — 'Loose 
him,  and  let  him  go.'  There  is  no  sign  in  all  this 
of  any  intention  to  introduce  a  reign  of  miracle, 
bringing  intellectual  confusion  into  the  world. 
On  the  contrary,  the  fact  that  Christ  manifestly 
could,  yet  habitually  would  not  overrule  it,  gives 
additional  emphasis  to  the  reign  of  law — an 
emphasis  which  the  whole  tenor  of  His  teaching 
serves  further  to  enforce.  For  the  burden  of  that 
teaching  is  that  the  course  of  nature  is  the  will  of 
God,  and  that  faith  should  recognize  that  will 
everywhere :  in  the  clothing  of  the  lilies,  the  feeding 
of  the  ravens,  the  fall  of  a  sparrow,  the  sunshine 
and  the  rain ;  not  less  than  in  the  sicknesses  that 
punish,  or  the  catastrophes  that  execute  swift 
judgement    upon   sin.     Christian    life   accordingly 


v]  THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES  lai 

consists  in  accepting  the  order  of  events,  not  in  the 
spirit  of  fatalism,  but  in  the  spirit  of  faith ;  not 
expecting  to  be  exempt  from  what  is  common  to 
man,  but,  patiently  enduring  to  the  «id, '  as  seeing 
Him  that  is  invisible.'  This  recognition  of  spiritual 
significance,  where  the  bodily  eye  sees  none,  is  the 
very  essence  of  the  Christian  probation  ;  the  charac- 
teristic distinction  of  the  Christian  life.  It  is  that 
walking  by  faith  and  not  by  sight,  that  belief  of 
those  who  have  not  seen,  upon  which  the  Gospels 
and  Epistles  alike  lay  all  their  stress.  And  to 
make  this  possible,  miracles,  in  the  ordinary  sense, 
must  cease.  But  they  cease,  it  should  be  noticed, 
as  the  scattered  lights  of  sunrise  fade  into  the  full- 
ness of  an  ampler  day.  They  cease  because  the 
fact  which  they  sporadically  emphasized  has  now 
become  a  Christian  commonplace ;  the  fact  that 
divine  providence  everywhere  and  always  uses 
matter  ibr  the  furtherance  of  spiritual  ends.  They 
do  not  vanish  out  of  history  as  though  they  had 
never  been,  and  leave  man  to  lapse  into  apathetic 
acceptance  of  the  inexorable  order  of  events.  They 
have  inaugurated  a  new  epoch :  they  have  inter- 
preted the  order  of  events  afresh:  they  have 
accentuated  and  intensified  the  providential  aspect 
of  the  world.  And  their  perpetual  trace  remains 
in  the  abiding  consciousness  of  Christians  that  'all 
things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that  loveGod.* 
The  cessation  therefore  of  miracles  was  as  needful 


raa         THE  INCARNATION  AND   MIRACLES      [chap. 

as  their  occurrence :  and  we  no  longer  look  to  meet 
with  them  in  ordinary  life.  But  they  have  irradiated 
the  world  for  us,  and  left  a  glow  behind  them 
which  is  still*' the  master  light  of  all  our  seeing.' 
For  they  have  led  us  to  face  nature  not  with  passive 
resignation,  but  with  active  faith,— faith  which  not 
only  reads  in  its  general  aspect  a  revelation  of  God, 
but  often  also  in  its  particular  incidents  a  mission 
and  a  message  to  individual  men.  Such  faith  can- 
not of  course  be  tested  by  the  methods  of  a  labora- 
tory or  a  law-court ;  and  is  too  private  and  peculiar 
even  to  be  publicly  proclaimed.  But  there  is  no 
question  that  it  is  a  normal  element  of  spiritual 
experience  with  which  Christians  have  been  familiar 
in  every  age ;  the  conviction  that  outward  events 
have  at  times  been  so  appositely  ordered  in  relation 
to  their  personal  needs,  as  to  prove  beyond  power 
of  doubting  that  the,  processes  of  nature  are,  at 
least  on  occasion,  utilized  in  the  interest  of  man. 
This  is  a  belief,  which  it  is  obvious,  cannot  be 
produced  in  argument ;  though  at  the  same  time  it 
profoundly  affects  the  Christian  attitude  towards 
argument ;  by  endowing  its  possessors  with  a 
certitude  which  no  critical  attack  can  shake.  *  At 
ubi  sunt  illi  depicti../  maybe  quoted  against  it  in 
vain.  Though  therefore  it  cannot  be  used  in  argu- 
ment, the  fact  of  its  widespread  existence  should 
have  weight.  For  it  is  no  mere  sentimental  fancy, 
or  superstition  of  the  ignorant  and  foolish.     It  has 


vj  THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES         laa 

been  shared  by  the  wise  and  practical,  the  men  of 
ideas,  and  the  men  of  afTairs.  In  every  age  and 
nation.  Christians  of  every  sort  and  kind  have 
believed  themselves  in  contact  with  a  living,  personal, 
particular  providence,  working  through  material  as 
well  as  spiritual  means.  They  have  felt  that,  in 
answer  to  prayer,  or  at  critical  moments  in  their 
life,  outward  events  have  aroused  and  controlled 
them,  as  distinctly  as  a  voice  or  hand  ;  things  which 
often  at  the  time  seemed  merely  natural  phenomena, 
yet  afterwards  were  recognized  as  ministers  of  God. 

'I  can  but  testify 
God's  care  for  me — no  more,  can  I — 
It  is  but  for  myself  I  know; 

No  mere  mote's-breadth  but  teems  immense 
With  witnessings  of  providence  : 


Have  I  been  sure,  this  Christmas-Eve, 

God's  own  hand  did  the  rainbow  weave, 

Whereby  the  truth  from  heaven  slid 

Into  my  soul?     I  cannot  bid 

The  world  admit  He  stooped  to  heal 

My  soul,  as  if  in  a  thunder-peal 

Where  one  heard  noise,  and  one  saw  flame, 

I  only  knew  He  named  my  name^' 

This  belief  in  a  special  providence  is  not  the 
same  as  a  belief  in  miracles ;  but  it  rests  on  a  very 
'  Browning,  Christmas  Eve. 


124         THE  INCARNATION  AND  MIRACLES 

similar  view  of  the  world.  For  it  implies  that  the 
souls  of  men,  in  their  separate  history  and  destiny, 
are  objects  of  peculiar,  personal  interest  to  God : 
while  nature — material  nature — that  seems  so 
changeless  in  its  course,  is  yet  an  instrument,  when 
rightly  viewed,  through  which  that  interest  is 
shown.  Now  though  these  thoughts  had  often 
risen  in  men's  minds  before,  there  can  be  no 
question  that  they  received  a  novel  and  final 
emphasis  from  Jesus  Christ.  He  first  taught  men 
to  regard  the  world,  as  children  look  upon  their 
father's  house,  with  a  secure  sense  in  it,  of  being 
everywhere  at  home.  And  it  is  an  old  remark 
that  even  physical  science  owes  more  than  we  often 
think,  to  the  friendly  attitude  towards  nature  which 
this  teaching  introduced.  But  miracles  were  among 
the  means,  as  we  have  seen  cause  to  believe,  which 
Christ  employed  to  give  weight  to  His  words : 
leading  men  to  trust  His  interpretation  of  the  world 
by  visible  proof  that  the  world  was  His  own.  If 
then  our  intimate  faith  in  providence  comes  to  us 
from  Christ,  it  is  lineally  connected  with  the 
wonders  that  He  wrought.  For  it  is  the  inner 
reality,  the  essential  truth,  which  those  wonders 
were  used  to  enforce,  in  an  age  and  among  a  race 
where  it  could  only  have  gained  credence  by  their 
means.  And  now,  in  its  turn,  it  makes  them 
credible,  by  the  ever-recurring  experience  of  its  own 
intrinsic  wonder. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   INCARNATION    AND    SACRAMENTS 

TTTE  have  seen  that  the  aspect  of  the  material 
•  •  universe  has  a  profound  religious  influence 
on  man  ;  but  matter  has  another  kind  of  connexion 
with  reh'gion,  which  is  hardly  less  important,  arising 
from  the  reaction  upon  it  of  the  human  mind. 
A  flower  growing  in  the  field,  quick  with  form 
and  scent  and  colour,  is  far  fairer  than  one  dried 
between  the  pages  of  a  book;  yet  though  the 
former  may  indeed  gfive  us  '  thoughts  that  do  often 
lie  too  deep  for  tears,'  the  latter  may  be  linked 
with  tender  memories  of  bygone  love,  which  invest 
it  with  greater  power  over  our  personal  life.  So 
beside  the  general  religious  impression  which  the 
beauty  and  wonder  of  the  world  creates,  we  find 
special  associations  of  spiritual  import  gathered 
round  particular  material  things ;  and  matter  has 
thus  what  may  be  called  a  secondary  as  well  as 
a  primary  connexion  with  religion.  Historically 
speaking,  indeed,  the  former  is  even  more  promi- 
nent than  the  latter  in  the  early  stages  of  human 


126      THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS    [chap. 

development.  For  the  distinction  in  question  closely 
corresponds  to  that  between  myth,  and  ritual  or 
cultus,  with  which  we  are  nowadays  so  familiar ; 
and  of  these,  cultus  in  early  religion  so  often  over- 
shadows myth,  that  it  has  even  been  supposed  by 
some  to  precede  it.  Thus  myths  embody  what 
may  be  called  the  primary  teachings  of  nature,  the 
simple  spiritual  ideas  which  its  aspect  inevitably 
awakes  in  the  mind  of  man ;  while  cultus  depends 
upon  the  various  secondary  associations,  by  which 
man  has  invested  particular  places  and  actions  and 
things  with  spiritual  significance,  of  a  more  or  less 
arbitrary  kind. 

Cultus  then,  in  its  widest  sense,  is  concerned 
with  an  immense  variety  of  rites  and  things,  of 
very  different  degrees  of  dignity  and  worth.  In 
early  religion,  for  example,  there  is  the  senseless 
fetish ;  the  sacred  animal  regarded  as  an  ancestor 
or  god ;  the  solemn  feast  at  which  the  clans- 
men renew  their  vital  union  by  feeding  together 
the  flesh,  or  life-blood,  or  emblem  of  their  god ; 
on  the  various  kinds  of  sacrifice  which  apparently 
arose  out  of  these  communions ;  the  sacred  spots 
which  divers  causes  had  invested  with  spiritual 
awe ;  the  ceremonial  customs  whereby  life's  epochs, 
of  birth,  puberty,  marriage,  and  death,  were  conse- 
crated by  the  sanctions  of  religion.  While  when 
we  come  to  more  civilized  ages,  and  cultivated 
races  the  same  things  reappear  upon  a  higher  level 


vi]         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS        197 

of  refinement.  The  rude  idol  gives  place  to  the 
shapelier  statue ;  the  sacred  grove  or  cave  to 
the  stately  temple;  the  tribal  communions  to  the 
solemn  mysteries  graced  with  art  and  song ;  cere- 
monies are  multiplied,  and  sacrifices  offered  with 
grander  pomp  and  circumstance.  Nor  did  the 
prepress  of  enlightenment  as  we  may  trace  it  in 
the  various  religious  books  of  India,  Persia,  China, 
and  Egypt,  in  any  way  diminish  the  importance  of 
this  material  side  of  religion.  It  led  to  that  clearer 
distinction  between  symbols  and  things  symbol- 
ized, between  external  actions  and  internal  motives, 
which  attained  its  most  complete  expression  in  the 
Greek  philosophers  and  Hebrew  prophets.  Yet 
even  Plato,  the  great  idealist,  would  have  infinite 
attention  bestowed  upon  the  material  conditions  of 
spiritual  culture ;  and  Ezekiel,  the  especial  prophet 
of  personal  responsibility,  with  all  his  insistence 
upon  the  immediate  relation  of  the  soul  to  God, 
reaffirms  the  elaborate  ritual  and  symbolism  of  the 
Temple.  Thus,  throughout  pre-Christian  history, 
the  phases  of  man's  spiritual  life  are  closely  con- 
nected with  material  forms. 

Now  this  connexion  is  often  represented  as  simply 
and  solely  superstitious ;  especially  since  we  have 
been  enabled  to  trace  its  evolution  from  the  primi- 
tive processes  of  savage  thought,  in  which  every- 
thing is  animated,  and  material  objects  are  naturally 
endowed  with  spiritual  meaning,  because  they  are 


ia8      THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS    [chap. 

literally  supposed  to  have  souls  of  their  own.  But 
this  misinterpretation  of  the  principle  of  evolution, 
as  if  it  degraded  all  things  to  the  level  of  their 
earliest  form  of  appearance,  has  again  and  again 
been  pointed  out.  The  true  teaching  of  evolution 
is  that  the  higher  form  is  implicitly  contained  in 
the  lower,  and  consequently  that  there  is  more 
in  the  lower  form  than  at  first  sight  meets  the  eye. 
And  many  of  the  instincts  of  primitive  man  were 
truer  than  the  explanations  of  them  which  he 
attempted  to  give.  His  judgements  were  better 
than  his  reasons.  So  in  the  present  case :  man  is 
progressive,  and  his  religion  has  been  the  chief 
factor  in  his  progress.  No  essential  element  of  his 
religion,  therefore,  can  have  been  wholly  irrational ; 
and  a  very  little  reflection  will  suffice  to  show  that 
the  connexion  in  question  is  an  essential  element  in 
his  religion.  For  spirit,  as  we  have  seen  above,  is 
only  known  to  human  experience  in  combination 
with  matter,  and  primitive  thought  scarcely  dis- 
tinguishes the  two.  When  therefore  a  savage 
believes  in  gods  and  spirits,  who  act  upon  him  in 
various  ways,  it  is  inevitable  that  he  should  localize 
them  in  the  supposed  spheres  of  their  activity :  the 
forest  that  thrills  him  ;  the  mountain  top  that  awes 
him ;  the  corn  and  wine  that  sustain  his  life ;  or 
the  flash  of  lightning  that  may  strike  him  dead. 
This  is  no  mere  play  of  fancy,  or  irrational  associa- 
tion of  ideas :  at  a  certain  stage  of  culture  it  is 


▼l]         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS        109 

a  psychological  necessity,  if  divine  presence  and 
divine  action  are  to  be  realized  at  all.  And  when 
later  on  this  crude  localization  gives  place  to  sym- 
bolic representation,  the  involved  principle  is  the 
same.  It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  fetish  to  Athene  of 
the  Parthenon ;  but  they  both  result  from  the  like 
inability  to  realize  spirit  apart  from  matter. 

But  the  relation  of  gods  to  men  is  only  one  side 
of  religion  ;  there  is  also  the  relation  of  men  to  the 
gods ;  and  this  again,  if  it  is  to  be  real,  must  issue 
in  physical  action.  Thus  the  partaking  in  the  tribal 
communion,  the  offering  of  sacrifice  with  its  pre- 
scribed ritual,  the  due  performance  of  epochal 
ceremonies,  the  observance  of  taboo,  constitute  the 
practical  religion  of  an  early  race.  Such  things 
may  seem  to  us  unspiritual,  and  so  of  course  to 
a  great  extent  they  were ;  the  external  action 
being  all  that  was  thought  of,  iOos  avev  (f)t,\ocro<piai 
as  Plato  calls  it.  But  they  were  the  necessary 
means  by  which  spiritual  life  first  came  to  recog- 
nize itself ;  they  called  the  will  into  play,  and  thus 
actualized  religion ;  they  kept  ordinary  life  under 
a  control,  which  was  ultimately  spiritual,  however 
dimly  understood  as  such,  and  which  therefore  con- 
tained the  potency  of  all  its  subsequent  develop- 
ment ;  while  for  the  higher  minds  they  were  the 
inevitable  stepping-stones  to  the  higher  forms  of 
conduct.  It  is  a  mistake  therefore  to  regard  the 
association  of  religious   belief  and    practice   with 

K 


130      THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS     [chap. 

material  things  as  inevitably  superstitious  or  irra- 
tional ;  for  it  is  founded  on  a  psychological  neces- 
sity, from  which  there  is  no  possibility  of  escape, 
in  a  world  where  spirit  can  only  be  realized  through 
matter.  Such  association  is  of  course  a  fruitful 
parent  of  superstition,  when  its  underlying  religion 
degenerates ;  but  it  is,  nevertheless,  the  natural 
method  by  which  religious  progress  has  been  made. 
Nor  is  it  always  possible,  in  a  given  case,  to  say 
where  superstition  began  and  progress  ended,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  we  cannot  replace  ourselves 
either  on  the  intellectual  or  moral  level  of  the 
remote  past. 

Jacob's  anointing  of  the  stone  at  Bethel,  where  he 
dreamed  of  heaven,  is  an  illustration  of  our  point. 
It  is  a  familiar  instance  of  a  custom  once  common 
the  whole  world  over,  and  which  has  left  its 
memorials  in  every  land,  degenerating  at  last 
into  mere  superstition.  But  in  Jacob's  case  it  is 
connected  with  a  spiritual  crisis  in  which  a  deeply 
religious  character  was  deeply  moved,  and  shows 
us  how  much  reality  may  often  underlie  such 
customs.  Indeed  the  Old  Testament  is  full  of 
instances  to  the  point :  ceremonies  like  circumcision, 
or  the  blood-anointing  of  the  passover,  or  the  dis- 
missal of  the  scapegoat,  are  paralleled  by  modern 
anthropologists  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe :  and 
can  perhaps  be  traced  to  what  are  intellectually 
very  crude  conceptions,  for  their  rise.     But  in  the 


vi]        THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS         131 

Old  Testament  we  see  with  what  profound  spiritual 
significance  they  were  capable  of  being  invested, 
and  of  how  much  real  religious  development  they 
may  have  been  the  vehicles  ;  and  though  these  may 
be  extreme  cases,  we  may  reasonably  assume  that 
similar  feelings  occurred  elsewhere ;  and  that  many 
a  relic,  which  now  only  excites  antiquarian  interest 
in  a  museum,  was  once  a  spiritual  symbol,  an  ele- 
ment in  some  soul's  tragedy,  charged  with  all  the 
pathos  of  religious  hopes  and  fears. 

But  the  same  line  of  thought  will  carry  us 
further.  The  spiritual  meaning,  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking  as  connected  with  material  things,  is 
usually  regarded  as  subjective  and  due  to  a  more 
or  less  arbitrary  association  of  ideas.  But  we  have 
already  had  occasion  to  remark  that  the  separation 
of  subject  and  object  is  easier  in  language  than  in 
fact.  The  most  intelligible  sense  which  we  have 
been  able  to  give  to  *  reality '  is  permanent  relation 
to  a  person  or  persons.  If  therefore  a  particular 
person  realizes  the  divine  presence,  which  we 
believe  to  be  latent  everywhere,  with  exceptional 
vividness  in  a  particular  place,  does  not  this  con- 
stitute an  actual  manifestation  of  God  to  that 
person  in  that  place  ?  For  in  what  sense  can  it  be 
said  that  God  is  not  really  present,  when  we  appre- 
hend His  presence  to  such  good  purpose,  that  the 
whole  of  our  subsequent  conduct  is  coloured  by 
the  fact?  The  same  could  not  of  course  be  said 
K  % 


139     THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS      [chap. 

of  a  being  who  was  not  omnipresent,  or  immanent 
throughout  the  universe.  But  a  Being  who  is 
omnipresent  is,  vi  termini,  present  at  all  times  and 
in  all  places.  When  therefore  He  is  recognized  at 
a  particular  time  or  place,  the  recognition  is  not 
imaginary  but  real.  He  is  there  and  causes  His 
own  recognition,  or  reveals  Himself.  So  far  indeed 
from  God's  universal  immanence  being  incompatible 
with  such  particular  presence,  as  is  sometimes  mis- 
takenly supposed,  it  is  the  natural  and  necessary 
presupposition  of  it.  Because  God  is  everywhere, 
He  can  appear  anywhere ;  while  because  man  is 
not  everywhere,  but  limited  to  a  particular  time 
and  place,  his  relation  to  God  must  be  realized 
under  the  like  particular  conditions. 

•  Earth 's  crammed  with  heaven, 
And  every  common  bush  afire  with  God ; 
But  only  he  who  sees  takes  off  his  shoes, 
The  rest  sit  round  it,  and  pluck  blackberries, 
And  daub  their  natural  faces  unaware 
More  and  more  from  the  first  similitude*.' 

Now  if  religion  be  true  at  all ;  if  there  be  any 
such  relation  of  God  to  man,  as  the  human  race 
has  always,  in  one  form  or  another,  believed ;  this 
psychological  necessity  for  its  material  expression 
is  an  additional  argument  for  the  Incarnation.  For 
the  most  perfect  organ  of  material  expression  is 
^  E.  B.  Browning,  Aurora  Leigh. 


vi]         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS       133 

confessedly  the  human  body:  and  we  cannot  but 
assume  that  if  God  really  desires  intercourse  with 
man,  He  will  adopt  its  most  perfect  means.  And 
thus  again  from  this  fresh  point  of  view  the  Incarna- 
tion is  antecedently  probable :  while,  as  we  have  said 
in  another  context,  once  grant  the  probability,  and 
the  life  of  Christ  becomes  its  obvious  fulfilment. 

The  life  of  Christ  in  the  flesh  then,  as  Christians 
regard  it,  is  the  visible  and  tangible  manifestation 
('that  which  we  have  seen  and  our  hands  have 
handled ')  of  God's  true  relation  to  man,  and  man's 
due  relation  to  God.  It  thus  sanctions  the  instinc- 
tive tendency  that  we  have  traced  in  every  stage  of 
culture,  to  realize  this  double  relation  by  material 
means ;  and  at  the  same  time  sublimates  those 
means  to  a  power  of  spiritual  expression  which  they 
never  possessed  before. 

Id  the  first  place  the  life  of  Christ  shows  us  the 
human  body  in  a  new  light;  shows  us  how  that 
body  of  flesh  and  blood,  which  even  Plato  called 
a  prison,  may  be  the  intimate  ally  as  well  as  the 
adequate  organ  of  the  soul.  For  the  body  of 
Christ  was  not  merely  the  instrument  of  His 
intercourse  with  men.  It  was  that,  with  its  gracious 
presence,  its  healing  touch,  its  tears  of  sympathy, 
its  words  and  looks  of  love  and  warning,  or  of 
righteous  indignation.  But  it  was  more  than  that ; 
an  integral  element  in  His  life  and  work.  He 
controls  its  appetites  under  temptation;  He  goes 


134     THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS     [chap. 

about  when  weary  doing  good ;  He  foresees  yet 
faces  suffering ;  He  masters  pain  to  speak  words 
of  kindness ;  He  accepts  death  by  crucifixion.  And 
these  things  do  not  merely  show,  they  actually 
make  His  human  character.  The  stress  and  strain 
of  them  fashions  and  forms  it — matter  thus  con- 
tributing to  shape  the  interior  life  which  it  also 
serves  to  express.  And  thus  we  see  that  the  bodily 
organism,  so  far  from  being  a  hindrance,  is  an 
essential  ingredient  in  the  progressive  development 
of  holy  personality. 

Then  there  is  Christ's  attitude  towards  nature, 
and  the  external  world :  He  declares  that  God  is 
omnipresent  in  it.  Heaven  is  God's  throne  and 
the  earth  is  His  footstool ;  and  without  Him  not 
a  sparrow  falls  on  the  ground.  Consequently,  we 
are  to  see  in  it  the  proof  of  God's  care  and  love. 
'  Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air  .  .  .  your  heavenly 
Father  feedeth  them.'  *  Consider  the  lilies  of  the 
field.'  '  If  God  so  clothe  the  grass  of  the  field,  shall 
He  not  much  more  clothe  you  ? '  *  He  maketh  His 
sun  to  rise  upon  the  evil  and  the  good,  and  sendeth 
rain  upon  the  just  and  on  the  unjust.'  Thus  natural 
religion,  as  obviously  flowing  from  the  primary 
aspect  of  the  material  world,  is  the  very  starting- 
point  and  basis  of  Christ's  teaching.  But  not  less 
striking  is  His  emphatic  sanction  of  what  we  have 
called  its  secondary  religious  use,  by  the  constant 
investiture  of  earthly  objects  with  a  spiritual  signi- 


VI]         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS        135 

ficance.  Salt,  light,  wheat,  tares,  mustard-seed, 
leaven,  pearls  of  price,  the  sheepfold,  the  vineyard, 
the  harvest,  the  sunset,  the  lightning  shining  from  the 
east  unto  the  west,  are  all  pressed  into  the  service 
of  the  spirit.  Everywhere  He  'touches  things 
common  till  they  rise  to  touch  the  spheres.'  And 
not  only  so,  but  He  uses  language  that  suggests 
a  deep  meaning  for  all  this.  Earthly  things  sym- 
bolize spiritual,  because  they  come  from  one  author 
and  are  the  expression  of  one  mind,  which  repeats 
its  creative  phrases  in  a  succession  of  ascending  keys. 
Hence  every  lower  foreshadows  a  higher  in  which 
its  meaning  is  fulfilled,  *  No  chaffinch  but  implies 
the  cherubim.'  Thus  the  clothing  of  the  grass  and 
the  feeding  of  the  ravens  are  prophetic  of  the  cloth- 
ing and  feeding  of  man.  And  the  disciples  are 
said  to  be  the  salt  of  the  earth,  the  light  of  the 
world,  labourers  in  the  harvest,  fishers  of  men; 
because  they  literally  repeat  the  selfsame  functions 
in  a  higher  plane  of  existence ;  while  finally  Christ 
speaks  of  Himself  not  as  resembling,  but  as  being 
the  veritable  vine,  the  veritable  bread,  the  verit- 
able light  of  the  world ;  implying  that  He  is  the 
absolute  truth  of  all  these  things ;  the  supreme 
reality  which  they  partially  manifest  in  their  several 
spheres  :  the  actual  source  of  all  material  nutrition 
and  illumination,  as  well  as  the  spiritual  life  and 
light  of  men. 

Nor  does  He  only  use  symbolical  language :  His 


136     THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS     [chap. 

life  is  full  of  symbolical  action.     He  was  baptized ; 
He    was  anointed ;   He  put  forth  His   hand   and 
touched  the  leper ;  He  sighed  and  said  Ephphatha  ; 
He  spat  and  made  clay  and  anointed  the  eyes  of 
the  blind ;  He  stooped  and  wrote  on  the  ground ; 
He  lifted  up   His  eyes  to  heaven ;    He  made   a 
scourge  of  small  cords ;  He  washed  His  disciples' 
feet ;    He  breathed  on  them ;   He  lifted   up    His 
hands  and  blessed  them.    And  He  died  by  the 
only  mode  of  death  which  could  be  visibly  por- 
trayed for  ever,  with  all  its  profound  appeal,  to  the 
eyes  of  men.     Lastly,  He  ordained  sacraments; 
selecting,  as  their  media,  the  two  simplest,  most 
symbolical,  most  universal  religious  rites,  the  sacred 
ablution,  and  the  sacred  feast.     Both  these  things 
were  familiar  to  the  world,  as  we  have  seen,  and  had 
their  place  under  all  kinds  ol  religion.     He  raised 
and  re-enacted  them  in  their  purest  forms  to  be 
thenceforward  means  of  union  with  Himself;  and 
thus  gave  final  recognition  to  the  law  we  have  traced 
by  which  matter  is  made  ministrant  to  spiritual  life. 
Now  when  we  review  the  life  and  teaching  of 
Christ,  we  see  at  once  upon  what  condition  this 
ministry  of  matter  takes  place;  what   it  is  that 
makes  it  religious  and  not  superstitious ;  progressive 
and  not  retrograde.     The  condition  is  that  matter 
be  always  subordinate  to  spirit.    We  see  this  first 
in  the  bodily  life.     *  Man  doth  not  live  by  bread 
alone '— '  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent 


vi]        THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS         137 

Me* — that  is  the  principle  by  which  the  body 
becomes  a  spiritual  instrument.  And  in  propor- 
tion as  it  is  forgotten,  and  bodily  appetite  is 
viewed  as  an  end  instead  of  a  means,  the  body 
ceases  to  be  the  spirit's  organ,  and  becomes  first 
its  prison,  and  then  its  grave.  The  man  loses  his 
power  of  self-determination,  the  distinctive  charac- 
teristic of  spirit,  and  is  inevitably  determined  from 
without ;  till  he  ends  by  becoming  the  mechanical 
automaton'  (the  man  machine)  that  materialism 
believes  him  always  to  be. 

So  with  the  parabolic  teaching,  there  are  those 
who  see  but  do  not  perceive,  because  they  cannot 
rise  above  the  level  of  the  letter  which  killeth — 
killeth,  that  is,  if  it  is  not  risen  above.  While  the 
forms  of  phrase  which  we  have  noticed  above  seem 
expressly  designed  to  emphasize  the  supremacy  of 
the  spiritual  element  I  am,  not  I  am  like,  the 
good  shepherd,  the  door,  the  way,  the  vine ;  as 
though  to  say,  I  am  the  reality,  before  which  the 
image  sinks  into  unimportance ;  or  again,  the  fields 
are  ripe  already  to  harvest,  the  real  fields  to  the 
real  harvest — and  ye  are,  not  ye  are  like,  the  salt  of 
the  earth,  the  light  of  the  world.  And  in  like 
manner  in  the  matter  of  ordinances ;  '  the  sabbath,' 
we  are  told, '  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the 
sabbath.'  '  It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth.the  flesh 
profiteth  nothing.'  •  The  words  that  I  speak  unto 
you,  they  are  spirit,  and  they  are  truth.' 


138      THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS     [chap. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  immemorial  union  of  matter 
and  spirit  in  religion  was  emphatically  sanctioned 
by  the  practice  and  precept  of  Christ ;  while  the 
complete  subordination  of  the  former  to  the  latter 
was  declared  to  be  the  condition  of  its  legitimacy — 
the  sole  condition  on  which  the  functions  of  either 
could  be  duly  fulfilled.  And  when  we  turn  to 
Christian  history  we  see  the  full  effect  of  this. 

In  the  first  place  there  is  the  treatment  of  the 
human  body ; — that  body  which  had  so  often  pre- 
viously been  despised  in  theory  and  indulged  in 
practice,  that  it  had  come  to  be  the  very  enemy  of 
the  soul.  Christianity  changed  all  this.  It  swept 
away  the  sham  contempt  of  the  philosophers,  and 
exalted  the  body  to  a  position  of  unique  dignity, 
by  declaring  it  to  be  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost ; 
while  for  the  same  reason  It  curbed  its  indulgence 
by  showing  that  temperance  and  chastity  are  parts 
of  the  reverence  due  to  so  august  a  thing.  It  thus 
unified  body  and  soul,  as  It  unified  the  other 
elements  of  human  personality ;  and  all  subsequent 
morality  was  coloured  by  the  fact.  The  body  lost 
its  false  independence,  and  reverted  to  its  true 
function;  while  as  the  body  grew  more  obedient, 
the  spirit  in  proportion  grew  more  free,  as  having 
an  adequate  instrument  for  all  its  uses  at  command. 
The  realization  of  this  ideal  could  not  of  course 
be  accomplished  without  a  struggle,  and  in  that 
struggle  the  mortification  of  the  body  was  carried 


vi]         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS        139 

at  times  too  far.  But  neither  the  theoretical  nor 
the  practical  excesses  of  particular  ascetics  can 
conceal  from  us  the  general  aim  of  the  Christian 
society  at  large ;  which  was  to  restore  body  and 
soul  to  their  true  relation  of  harmonious  unity,  by 
investing  the  body  with  the  sacrosanctity  of  the 
soul  which  it  subserved.  Hence  we  find  in  early 
Christian  teaching  great  stress  laid  on  bodily 
behaviour — sobriety,  modesty,  seemliness  of  pos- 
ture and  gesture  and  voice  and  dress, — gentle 
manners,  in  short,  of  every  kind,  and  upon  every 
occasion,  as  becoming  the  visible  manifestation  of 
the  Christian  soul ;  while  the  same  thought,  further 
emphasized  by  the  hope  of  resurrection,  led  to 
increased  tenderness  and  reverence  in  the  treatment 
of  the  dead.  Thus  the  place  of  the  body  in  human 
personality,  its  intimate  connexion  with  our  inmost 
self,  and  consequent  participation  in  all  the  phases 
of  our  moral  and  religious  life,  was  recognized  as  it 
had  never  been  before. 

Then  there  is  the  sacramental  system  to  which 
baptism  and  the  eucharist  gave  rise.  This  was 
not  of  course  as  elaborate  at  first  as  in  process  of 
time  it  came  to  be ;  nor  do  we  find  in  the  early 
church  those  definitions  and  distinctions  to  which 
subsequent  controversy  led.  But  we  see  clearly  that 
from  the  very  first,  the  material  elements  of  these 
two  sacraments  were  intimately  connected  in  the 
Christian  consciousness  with  the  grace  which  they 


I40      THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS     [chap. 

conveyed.  The  early  fathers  dwell  not  only  on 
baptism,  but  on  the  water  of  baptism,  that  '  water 
united  to  the  word/  as  Clement  calls  it  {vhiop 
AoytKo'r),'the  blessed  sacrament  oi^sXer' {felix sacra- 
mentum  aquae),  which  has  an  angel  of  its  own  like 
that  of  Bethesda,  in  Tertullian's  belief.  Tertullian 
indeed  goes  so  far  as  to  say  of  his  own  treatise 
upon  baptism,  '  I  am  afraid  that  I  may  seem  rather 
to  have  been  accumulating  the  praises  of  water 
than  the  reasons  for  baptism.'  It  is  once  called 
by  Origen  a  symbol ;  but  plainly  for  most  it  was 
more  than  this — a  symbol  penetrated  and  trans- 
fused by  the  illuminating  presence  of  what  it  sym- 
bolized, and  therefore  a  holy  thing.  So  too  with 
the  eucharistic  elements.  Ignatius  call  the  eu- 
charist  *  the  flesh  of  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.' 
Justin  Martyr,  'no  common  bread  or  drink  .  .  . 
but  the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  incarnate  Jesus.' 
Irenaeus,  *  no  longer  common  bread,  but  the  eu- 
charist,  consisting  of  two  things,  an  earthly  and  a 
heavenly.'  *  We  are  distressed,'  says  Tertullian,  '  if 
aught  of  the  chalice  or  bread  fall  upon  the  ground.* 
Such  expressions  would  have  to  be  qualified,  if  we 
were  discussing  the  precise  doctrine  of  the  early 
church,  by  others  from  Clement,  Origen,  and  the 
Greek  fathers;  but  they  suffice  to  show  from  how 
early  a  date  the  material  elements  of  the  eucharist 
were  regarded  as,  to  say  the  least,  of  a  peculiar  sanc- 
tity, though  its  precise  nature  had  not  as  yet  been 


vi]        THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS        141 

critically  defined.  Here  then  we  have  a  parallel  to 
the  Christian  view  of  the  human  body — water  and 
bread  and  wine,  raised  to  a  position  of  new  dignity 
as  vehicles  of  a  spiritual  benediction  upon  men ; 
while  the  entire  dependence  of  their  value,  upon 
the  spirit  with  which  they  were  linked,  is  at  the 
same  time  clearly  and  emphatically  maintained. 

But  these  new  sacraments  had,  as  we  have  seen, 
like  all  things  else,  a  history.  They  date  back  to 
primaeval  religion,  and  are  the  offspring  of  earlier 
rites ;  rites  which  in  the  course  of  ages  had  acquired 
their  appropriate  ceremonial.  Hence  it  was  not 
unnatural  that  in  the  process  of  time  the  Christian 
sacraments  should  attract  to  themselves  the  acces- 
sories of  Jewish  and  Graeco-Roman  worship ;  pos- 
tures, gestures,  vestments,  sacred  symbols  and 
utensils,  solemn  processions,  religious  music,  incense, 
chrism,  lights ;  raising  the  old-world  ritual  to  a  higher 
and  holier  use.  It  is  of  course  easy  from  a  modern 
point  of  view  to  regard  this  process  as  retrogressive ; 
a  return  from  Christian  spirituality  to  Jewish  and 
pagan  materialism.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  is 
far  too  narrow  and  unsympathetic  a  judgement. 
All  religion  as  it  becomes  popular  is  apt  to  be 
degraded;  and  the  Christian  sacraments  were  un- 
doubtedly degraded  in  their  popular  use.  But  on 
the  other  hand,  all  religion  has  and  must  have  its 
material  side.  This  material  side  of  religion  is  its 
body,  its  necessary  organ  of  expression  and  mani- 


143      THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS     [chap. 

festation,  and  has  persisted  in  unbroken  continuity 
from  the  earliest  days.  Every  successive  religion 
has  entered  upon  some  part  or  other  of  this  com- 
mon heritage,  this  great  ritual  tradition  ;  elevating, 
inspiring,  improving,  it  may  be,  but  still  using  the 
time-honoured  forms.  And  Christianity,  with  its 
world-wide  appeal  to  all  races  and  classes  of  man- 
kind, could  be  no  exception  to  the  rule.  Moreover 
the  Incarnation  was,  by  its  very  nature,  as  we  have 
been  arguing  above,  the  final  sanction  and  justifica- 
tion of  this  great  principle  in  things ;  the  extreme 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  all  spiritual  truth 
must  be  embodied  in  material  form.  Had  Chris- 
tianity been  merely  a  spiritual  religion — supposing 
such  a  thing  possible — and  subsequently  adopted 
sacraments,  this  might  conceivably  have  been  called 
a  decline.  But  the  religion  of  the  Incarnation 
could  not  possibly  be  merely  spiritual.  It  not  only 
started  with  sacraments  from  its  very  origin  ;  but 
it  was  essentially  and  fundamentally  sacramental 
to  the  core.  For  what  is  the  Incarnation  itself 
but  a  sacrament,  the  sum  and  substance  of  all 
sacraments?  When  therefore  theologians  called 
baptism  and  the  eucharist  extensions  of  the  Incar- 
nation, they  were  using  no  rhetorical  metaphors; 
they  were  literally  and  accurately  correct.  For 
these  ordinances,  with  the  sacramental  network 
which  insensibly  gathered  round  them,  were  the 
means  and  witness  of  that  consecration  of  the  body, 


vi]         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS       143 

as  an  integral  element  in  our  whole  personality, 
which  it  had  been  the  work  of  the  Incarnation  to 
effect  And  it  was  inevitable,  in  accordance  with 
all  laws  of  historic  evolution,  that  these  sacraments 
once  instituted,  should  gradually  clothe  themselves 
with  the  colours  and  associations  of  those  earlier 
rites  which,  in  the  deepest  sense,  they  came  not  to 
destroy  but  to  fulfil.  Thus  the  growth  of  the 
sacramental  system  was  an  historical  necessity ; 
which,  despite  of  the  religious  materialism  into 
which  it  too  frequently  lapsed,  was  part  and  parcel 
of  that  great  reclamation  of  the  material  world  for 
God,  which  began  with  the  Word  made  Flesh. 

And  this  naturally  leads  our  thoughts  to  the 
influence  of  Christianity  upon  art.  The  connexion 
of  art  and  religion  was  a  thing  of  immemorial  age : — 

'Pictores  quis  nescit  ab  Iside  pasci.' 
And  we  are  not  surprised  to  see  how  soon,  in  the 
catacombs,  art  was  pressed  into  the  Christian  ser- 
vice. But  fierce  controversies  had  to  rage,  before 
art  was  made  finally  at  home  in  the  Church.  The 
Iconoclasts  felt  its  danger,  and  protested  against  its 
use,  with  a  puritan  austerity  which  cannot  but  com- 
mand our  respect.  But  Iconoclasm  was  foredoomed 
to  failure  by  the  very  nature  of  the  case.  For  what 
has  been  said  of  the  sacramental  system  applies 
equally  to  art.  The  Incarnation  involved  artistic 
development  as  part  of  its  redemption  of  the  mate- 
rial world,  its  restoration  of  matter  to  the  service  of 


144     THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS     [chap. 

the  spirit.  And  accordingly  the  note  of  all  great 
Christian  art  is  the  subordination  of  material  beauty 
to  spiritual  use.  Of  course  all  Christian  art  was  not 
great ;  and  where  religion  was  degenerate  or  taste 
degraded,  we  meet  with  bloodstained  crucifixions 
and  realistic  martyrdoms  which  are  as  hideously 
inartistic  as  they  are  alien  to  the  true  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity. And  equally,  of  course,  all  great  art  was 
not  Christian ;  when  pursued,  in  modern  phrase,  for 
art's  sake,  colour  and  form  and  impression  becom- 
ing ends  in  themselves.  But  this  does  not  alter  the 
fact  that  the  religion  of  the  Incarnation  breathed 
a  new  life  into  art,  and  endowed  it  with  new  power 
over  the  thoughts  and  affections  of  men. 

First  and  foremost  there  are  the  Gothic  cathedrals, 

*  Everlasting  piles 
Types  of  the  spiritual  church  which  God  hath 
reared. 

Where  bubbles  burst,  and  folly's  dancing  foam 
Melts,  if  it  cross  the  threshold ;  where  the  wreath 
Of  awe-struck  wisdom  droops  ^.* 

Stone  seems  in  them  to  lose  its  stubborn  nature, 

as  it  soars,  in  obedience,  tier  over  tier,  to  the  infinite 

aspiration  of  the  soul. 

'  With  living  wiles 

Instinct — to  rouse  the  heart  and  lead  the  will 

By  a  bright  ladder  to  the  world  above  \' 

'  Wordsworth,  Ecclesiastical  Sketches. 


vq         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS        145 

They  are  perhaps  the  most  striking  instance  of 
spirit's  power  to  subdue  matter,  since  it  is  matter 
of  the  most  obstinate,  concrete,  solid  kind  which  is 
thus  subdued.  But  the  same  is  the  case  with 
Christian  painting,  in  a  still  subtler  degree; 
Cimabue,  Giotto,  and  their  followers  not  only 
raised  and  dignified  pictorial  art,  by  their  dedi- 
cation of  brush  and  pencil  to  the  Christian  service  ; 
but,  in  so  doing,  they  discovered  in  it  new  depths 
of  possibility,  wholly  unsuspected  capacities  of 
spiritual  expression,  fresh  powers  in  the  sensuous 
image  to  show  the  innermost  secrets  of  the  soul. 

'The  early  painters. 
To  cries  of  "  Greek  Art  and  what  more  wish 
you  ?  " 
Replied,  "To  become  now  self-acquainters, 
And  paint  man,  man,  whatever  the  issue! 
Make  new  hopes  shine  through  the  flesh  they  fray, 

New  fears  aggrandize  the  rags  and  tatters: 
To  bring  the  invisible  full  into  play! 

Let  the  visible  go  to  the  dogs — what  matters  ?  ^ "  * 

It  is  the  same,  again,  with  music,  which  may  be 
called  pre-eminently  the  Christian  art.  For  what- 
ever earlier  traditions  paved  the  way  for  it,  the 
development  of  music  from  the  Gregorian  age  to 
that  of  Handel  and  Bach,  was  virtually  a  new  crea- 
tion.    It  arose  out  of  the  Christian  worship,  under 

*  Browning,  Old  Pictures  in  Florence. 
L 


146      THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS     [chap. 

the  Christian  inspiration,  and  was  matured  by 
Christian  artists,  and  for  Christian  use.  Not  un- 
naturally therefore  it  is  the  art  in  which  matter 
is  most  completely  subordinate  to  spirit  For 
sound,  as  it  floats  upon  the  viewless  air,  can  scarcely 
be  called  a  material  thing.  Its  mechanical  origin 
is  forgotten  in  its  invisible  effect.  And  when  these 
airy,  unsubstantial,  wandering  tones  are  caught  by 
the  musician  and  transfigured  with  the  magic  of  his 
art,  they  seem  to  lose  the  last  lingering  remnant 
of  material  restraint.  Wherever  the  spirit  ranges, 
music  is  free  to  follow.  No  joy  is  too  ecstatic,  no 
sorrow  too  deep,  no  action  too  impetuous,  no  pas- 
sion too  intense,  no  phase  of  thought  or  feeling  too 
rare,  to  come  within  its  scope.  It  thrills  and  throbs 
with  every  movement  of  the  life  which  it  interprets 
and  reveals.  And  we  feel  that  matter  can  go  no 
further ;  it  has  reached  its  limit  ;  it  has  become,  as 
Hegel  truly  says,  independent  of  space  and  time  : — 

*  Miserere,  Domine! 
The  words  are  utter'd,  and  they  flee. 
Deep  is  their  penitential  moan, 
Mighty  their  pathos,  but  'tis  gone. 
They  have  declared  the  spirit's  sore 
Sore  load,  and  words  can  do  no  more. 
Beethoven  takes  them  then — those  two 
Poor,  bounded  words — and  makes  them  new; 
Infinite  makes  them,  makes  them  young ; 
Transplants  them  to  another  tongue. 


Vl]         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS        147 

Where  they  can  now,  without  constraint, 

Pour  all  the  soul  of  their  complaint, 

And  roll  adown  a  channel  large 

The  wealth  divine  they  have  in  charge. 

Page  after  page  of  music  turn, 

And  still  they  live  and  still  they  burn. 

Perennial,  passion-fraught,  and  free — 

Miserere,  Domine  /  ^  * 

The  arts  indeed  as  they  have  reached  their 
maturity,  have  acquired  an  independent  life  of 
their  own ;  and  are  no  longer  so  obviously  con- 
nected with  the  Christian  worship,  or  illumined  by 
the  Christian  faith,  as  once  they  were.  But  this 
apparent  secularity,  if  art  can  ever  be  called  secular, 
must  not  blind  us  to  the  essential  sacredness  of  all 
true  art,  and  to  the  fact  that  it  arose  in  sacred 
places,  and  was  destined  for  a  sacred  use.  It  is,  as 
we  now  possess  it,  a  gift  of  Christianity  to  the 
world  ;  just  as  our  common  morality  which  is  now 
public  property,  the  possession  of  believers  and 
unbelievers  alike, — and  which  is  often  credited,  in 
consequence,  with  a  secular  origin — really  grew  up 
under  Christian  influence,  and  was  fostered  by 
Christian  devotion  till  it  grew  strong  enough  in 
the  end  to  stand  alone. 

Thus  the  religion  of  the  Incarnation  raised  the 
sacramental   and  artistic   capabilities  of  matter  to 

'  Matthew  Arnold,  Epilogue  to  Lesring's  Laocoon. 
L  2 


148      THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS     [chap. 

a  new  level,  as  it  raised  the  human  body  itself; 
making  them  minister  to  that  'coming  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,'  that  development  of  a  society 
of  holy  persons,  whose  object  was  to  regenerate 
the  world. 

Hence  the  religious  effect  of  art  and  sacrament 
is  the  reproduction,  on  a  higher  plane,  of  that  same 
influence  which  we  have  seen  the  mere  spectacle  of 
the  world  to  exert.  It  is  the  religious  influence 
of  material  nature,  focussed,  localized,  intensified, 
by  the  conscious  intervention  of  man  ;  precisely  as 
the  natural  forces  of  heat  and  light  and  electricity 
are  focussed  and  localized  by  human  agency,  to  be 
turned  to  human  use. 

It  follows  that  the  spiritual  influence  of  art  and 
sacrament  must  be  as  real — in  modern  phrase  as 
objectively  real — as  that  of  nature,  which  they  do 
but  emphasize.  We  have  argued  at  length  that  the 
religious  influence  of  nature  is  too  obviously  real 
to  be  attributed  to  mere  subjective  sentiment,  mere 
feeling  without  objective  counterpart;  and  that  it 
must  be  conceived  of  as  the  divine  omnipresence 
making  itself  felt.  When  therefore  we  emphasize 
this  presence,  either  by  the  help  of  inspired  genius 
as  in  the  arts,  or  in  a  higher  and  more  solemn 
way,  by  celebration  of  the  sacraments  ordained  by 
Christ,  the  like  reality  must  attach  to  those  points 
of  emphasis.  Carlyle  speaks  of  art  as  'eternity 
looking  through  time ' ;  Newman  of  music  as  *  the 


VI]         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS        149 

outpourings  of  eternal  harmony  in  the  medium  of 
created  sound  ' ;  Browning  as 

*  A  flash  of  the  will  that  can, 

Existent  behind  all  laws,  that  made  them,  and 
lo  they  are^' 

And  these  are  more  than  rhetorical  phrases. 
They  express  the  common  conviction  of  serious 
minds,  that  just  as  science  does  not  invent  but 
discovers  the  laws  of  the  material  world,  so  art 
does  not  create  but  reveals  the  truth  of  spiritual 
things.  There  is  a  spiritual  power  in  the  universe 
to  illuminate  our  minds,  to  enkindle  our  hearts, 
and  to  stir  our  wills ;  and  the  genius  of  the  artist 
is  among  the  instruments  through  which  this  spirit 
speaks. 

And  what  is  true  of  art  is  from  the  Christian 
point  of  view  still  more  true  of  sacraments.  We 
cannot  indeed,  and  need  not,  define  the  method  of 
their  operation,  as  rival  theologians  have  so  often 
attempted  to  do.  For  we  know  nothing  of  the  ulti- 
mate nature  of  either  of  their  elements,  nor  how 
those  elements,  even  in  our  own  persons,  are  com- 
bined. And  this  is  the  point  which  is  really 
involved,  rather  than  any  strictly  theological  issue, 
in  all  the  various  sacramental  theories,  which  lie 
between  the  poles  of  Zwingli  and  the  Council  of 
Trent  But,  however  we  regard  them,  the  fact 
remains  that  the  sacraments  were  selected  and 
*  Browning,  Abt  Vogler. 


ISO         THE  INCARNATION  AND  SACRAMENTS 

ordained  by  Christ  to  be  means,  in  one  way  or 
another,  of  union  and  communion  with  Himself. 
Had  they  been  arbitrarily  chosen  things,  we  might 
perhaps  have  been  content  to  call  them  symbols. 
But  they  are  very  far  indeed,  as  we  have  seen,  from 
being  arbitrary  inventions.  They  have  a  history 
behind  them  as  old  as  humanity,  and  a  context 
around  them  as  wide  as  the  world ;  and  point  us 
back  to  sacramental  customs  of  immemorial  age. 
And  if  these  earlier  rites  derived  reality  and  value 
from  God's  immanence  in  the  world,  and  found 
Him  at  particular  times  and  places  because  He 
is  everywhere  present  and  ready  to  be  found,  the 
Christian  sacraments  must  possess  this  reality  in  its 
highest  degree.  While  in  their  case  it  is  further 
fortified  by  the  fact  that  they  are  divine  com- 
mands ;  and  carry  with  them  the  direct  promise 
of  a  personal  response  to  the  personal  allegiance 
which  they  claim ;  the  promise  not  that  God  may 
be  found,  but  that  He  will  definitely  meet  us,  at 
the  time  and  in  the  place  of  His  appointment. 
Thus  the  sacraments,  in  our  Christian  view  of  them, 
are  the  key  to  the  material  world,  as  the  means  of 
union  with  the  supreme  reality,  the  personal  God ; 
while  the  form  of  them — an  ablution  and  a  meal 
— our  simplest  bodily  needs — reminds  us  that  our 
bodies  are  an  integral  element  in  that  entire 
personality,  whose  destiny  is  union  with  the  Word 
made  Flesh. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   INCARNATION   AND   THE   TRINITY 

IT  will  have  been  observed  that  the  preceding 
pages  are  in  no  way  intended  to  summarize  the 
general  evidence  for  the  truth  of  the  Incarnation  ; 
which  is  a  thing  that  must  be  studied  in  its  full 
detail  in  order  to  be  felt  with  its  full  weight.  Their 
object  in  dealing  with  the  Incarnation  has  merely 
been  to  vindicate  and  emphasize  one  of  its  aspects ; 
its  place,  namely,  in  our  philosophy  of  nature,  its 
relation  to  our  conviction  of  God's  immanence  in 
the  natural  world.  But  all  attempts  to  present 
religious  doctrine  in  a  philosophical  connexion  run 
a  certain  risk  of  conveying  the  impression  that  it 
is  only  philosophical — a  speculative  suggestion,  an 
intellectual  after-thought,  an  unsubstantial  vision  in 
the  air.  And  such  impression  is  doubly  dangerous, 
in  the  present  day,  from  the  fact,  that  it  may  seem 
to  give  colour  to  the  commonest  form  of  contem- 
poraneous attack  on  Christianity ;  which  represents 
the  Incarnation,  with  the  Trinitarian  theology  that 


153      THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY     [chap. 

it  involves,  as  metaphysical  corruptions  of  what  was 
once  a  simpler  creed.  It  may  be  advisable  there- 
fore, as  a  safeguard,  as  well  as  a  confirmation  of 
what  has  gone  before,  to  point  out  the  practical 
character  of  both  these  doctrines,  as  well  as  the 
practical  method  of  their  introduction  to  the  world 

'  Faithful  souls,'  says  St.  Hilary  of  Poitiers, '  would 
be  contented  with  the  word  of  God,  which  bids  us 
"  Go  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name 
of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost." '  '  But  alas  I '  he  continues,  *  we  are  driven 
by  the  faults  of  our  heretical  opponents  to  do  things 
unlawful,  to  scale  heights  inaccessible,  to  speak  out 
what  is  unspeakable,  to  presume  where  we  ought 
not.  And  whereas  it  is  by  faith  alone  that  we 
should  worship  the  Father,  and  reverence  the  Son, 
and  be  filled  with  the  Spirit,  we  are  now  obliged  to 
strain  our  weak  human  language  in  the  utterance 
of  things  beyond  its  scope  ;  forced  into  this  evil 
procedure  by  the  evil  procedure  of  our  foes.  Hence, 
what  should  be  matter  of  silent  religious  medi- 
tation must  now  needs  be  imperilled  by  exposition 
in  words.' 

This  passage  is  from  the  first  great  dogmatic 
treatise  of  the  Christian  Church,  that  of  St.  Hilary 
on  the  Trinity ;  and  it  is  admirably  typical  of  the 
patristic  attitude  towards  all  dogmatic  definition. 
The  fathers,  unlike  the  schoolmen,  had  no  love  of 


vii]        THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY       153 

it ;  they  recognized  its  occasional  necessity,  but 
recognized  it,  for  the  most  part,  with  regret ;  and 
never  without  a  sense  that  the  ground  they  trod 
was  holy  ground,  the  mysteries  they  handled, 
things  of  awe.  Accordingly,  it  will  be  noticed  that 
Hilary  here,  like  Augustine  after  him,  bases  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  entirely  on  a  simple  fact, — 
namely,  the  baptismal  formula  of  the  Christian 
Church  ;  which  from  the  first  must  have  carried 
with  it  some  traditional  interpretation,  yet  which 
confessedly  has  nothing  metaphysical  about  it. 
This  form  of  words  presided  over  the  greatest 
change  that  has  occurred  in  history,  and  it  is 
obvious  that  sooner  or  later  it  would  have  had  to 
be  explained.  But  the  process  of  this  explanation 
lies  open  before  us  in  its  every  stage  ;  and  it  is  per- 
fectly plain  that  from  first  to  last  it  was  regarded 
as  the  interpretation  of  a  revealed  fact.  The  inces- 
sant appeal  is  to  what  the  Scripture  says,  or  what 
the  saying  of  the  Scripture  means.  No  speculative 
element  is  introduced  at  any  point :  and  the  result- 
ing creeds  are  nothing  more  than  the  authorized 
epitomes  of  what,  in  the  view  of  their  composers, 
the  Gospels  contain.  Concrete  facts,  when  they  are 
translated  into  the  terms  of  science  or  philosophy, 
look  very  unlike  themselves.  A  daisy,  for  example, 
is  not  like  its  botanical  description,  nor  a  sonata 
like  its  musical  score.  And  so  the  simple  password 
that  gives  entrance  to  a  world-wide  family,  will 


154      THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY     [chap. 

naturally  dififer  from  the  intellectual  statement  of 
what  a  great  religion  means. 

Viewed,  then,  in  the  light  of  its  history,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  no  metaphysical  inven- 
tion like  the  Platonic  *  ideas,'  or  the  Aristotelian 
'  form ' ;  but  simply  the  expression  in  philosophical 
language  of  what  had  entered  the  world  as  a  state- 
ment of  fact — the  fact  that  there  is  plurality,  triune 
plurality  in  God.  And  though  at  first  sight  this 
might  seem  a  mystery  too  transcendental  to  be 
worth  revelation,  its  revelation  was  in  fact  a  thing 
of  the  profoundest  practical  import. 

*  I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life,'  said  Jesus 
Christ,  *  and  that  they  might  have  it  more  abun- 
dantly.' Truer,  fuller,  fairer  life  is  the  ultimate 
issue  of  the  religion  of  the  cross ;  no  mere  theory, 
but  a  plain,  palpable,  practical  result.  Yet  the 
entire  possibility  of  this  result  depended  upon  such 
an  increased  knowledge  of  God's  nature  as  should 
enable  a  clearer  comprehension  of  His  whole  re- 
lationship to  man.  *  God  is  loving,'  had  been  said 
by  others  before  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ,  but 
never  *  God  is  Love ' :  and  there  is  a  world  of 
difference  between  the  two  propositions.  The 
statement  of  the  psalmist,  that '  God  is  loving  unto 
every  man/  does  not  of  necessity  imply  that  love 
is  more  than  what  may  be  called  a  relative  and 
secondary  attribute  of  God  ;  an  affection  elicited 
by  the  existence,  the  ephemeral  existence  of  His 


VII]       THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY       155 

creatures,  and  which,  apart  from  that  existence, 
would  cease  to  operate,  and  therefore  to  be.  God 
in  His  unknown  essence  might  still  be  something 
other  than  Love :  but  the  statement  that '  God  is 
Love '  is  very  different  from  this :  it  is  a  real  reve- 
lation beyond  all  that  we  could  otherwise  have 
learned :  it  lifts  Love  at  once  into  the  absolute,  as 
the  essential  and  eternal  cause  of  all ;  thereby 
exhibiting  the  whole  world  in  a  new  light.  For 
there  is  all  the  difference  between  a  mysterious, 
unintelligible  universe,  whose  fathomless  depths 
are  never  pierced  by  the  uncertain  gleams  of  love, 
which  play  fitfully  from  time  to  time  upon  their 
face  ;  and  one  whose  first  and  final  cause,  whose 
very  root  and  ground  is  love  ;  one  amid  whose 
mysteries  we  can  therefore  move  with  confidence, 
and  whose  unsolved  problems  we  can  face  with 
hope. 

But  if  love  is  to  be  thought  of  as  thus  absolute, 
or  in  other  words  synonymous  with  God,  as  dis- 
tinct from  being  merely  contingent  on  creation, 
there  must  of  necessity  be  conceived  a  plurality  of 
persons  in  the  Godhead  ;  for  when  we  speak  of  love 
we  mean  the  affection  of  one  person  for  another, 
and  except  it  be  taken  in  that  sense,  the  word  is 
utterly  and  blankly  meaningless.  If,  therefore,  the 
proclamation  that  God  is  Love  does  not  mean  this, 
it  has  no  more  value  or  significance  than  that  the 
unknown  is  the  unknowable. 


156      THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY     [chap. 

Hence  if  human  life  was  to  be  renewed,  and 
human  society  reconstructed  on  the  basis  of  the 
faith  that '  God  is  Love/  there  was  paramount  need 
that  enough  of  the  veil  should  be  lifted  from  the 
Godhead,  to  assure  us  that  those  words  really 
meant  what  they  must  inevitably  appear  to  mean. 
Thus,  what  is  often  misrepresented  as  a  speculative 
superfluity  turns  out  upon  analysis  to  be  the  most 
practical  of  truths. 

To  say  this  is  not,  of  course,  to  imply  that  intel- 
lectual illumination  was  the  primary  object  of  the 
Christian  religion,  but  merely  that  Christianity 
could  not  have  been  taught  along  the  ages,  without 
some  such  illumination  of  the  intellect  as  that  by 
which,  in  fact,  it  was  accompanied. 

Hence  this  illumination  has  always  been  regarded 
as  an  integral  portion  of  the  Christian  Creed,  enhanc- 
ing and  not  diminishing  its  practical  efficiency,  by 
including  head  as  well  as  heart  in  its  appeal.  For 
it  supplies  us  with  an  analogy  that  we  can  follow 
out  in  thought.  The  fairest  thing  we  know  on 
earth,  the  truest  practical  solution  of  life's  problem, 
is  a  society  or  family  whose  members  are  united 
by  a  common  bond  of  love.  Within  the  charmed 
circle,  such  love  is  reflected  from  each  to  all  and 
all  to  each,  and  gathers  in  the  process  an  intimate 
intensity,  far  beyond  all  power  to  express ;  while, 
to  those  who  are  without,  it  ever  bums  to  impart 
some  fragment  of  its  own  inspiring  energy  and  joy, 


vn]        THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY        157 

by  thoughts  of  tenderness  and  words  of  sympathy, 
and  deeds  of  kindly  care. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  picture  drawn  from  the 
noblest  thing  we  know,  which  illustrates,  however 
feebly,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  that 
Divine  Society,  whose  co-equal  members  are  one  in 
infinite  eternal  love,  and  who  in  that  love's  exuber- 
ance come  forth,  in  a  sense,  from  out  themselves,  to 
create,  to  sustain,  to  redeem,  to  sanctify,  to  bless. 

It  must  not  for  a  moment  be  supposed  that  we 
can  follow  this  analogy  in  detail,  or  that  it  does 
not  still  leave  much  that  is  obscure.  The  human 
picture  melts  away  into  the  light  that  no  man 
can  approach  unto.  The  Father  remains  incompre- 
hensible, the  Son  incomprehensible,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  incomprehensible.  Such  has  always  been 
the  language  of  the  Church.  In  a  word,  her  doctrine 
is  sufficient  to  make  our  thought  of  God  more  full, 
more  real,  more  adequate  to  influence  human  life ; 
while  in  contrast  with  all  philosophies  which  at- 
tempt to  criticize  the  Absolute,  it  leaves  His 
ineffable  mystery  alone.  Those  philosophies,  on 
the  other  hand,  have  never  succeeded  in  presenting 
us  with  either  a  likelier  or  a  clearer  conception  of 
God  ;  while  in  power  to  control  conduct,  to  console 
sorrow,  to  develop  life,  they  are  immeasurably  sur- 
passed by  the  Christian  creed. 

And  this  is  after  all  the  true  test  of  a  theology ; 
the  extent  and  character  of  its  influence  on  life. 


158      THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY     [chap. 

For  no  modem  form  of  Theism  views  God  as 
a  mere  logical  abstraction,  whose  unity  can  only 
be  maintained  by  isolation  from  the  world.  How- 
ever variously  men  think  about  Him,  in  the  present 
day,  they  would  at  least  agree,  that  He  must  be 
regarded  as  the  real,  concrete,  source  and  ground 
and  goal  of  things  ;  by  His  intimate,  immanent 
omnipresence  making  the  universe  one  whole,  or  in 
older  language, '  upholding  all  things'  and  'filling 
all  in  all.' 

But  foremost  in  the  universe  of  our  experience  is 
man.  God,  even  if  we  call  Him  the  unknown,  must 
yet  be  the  source  and  ground  and  goal  of  human 
personality,  and  all  its  powers.  If  therefore  He  is 
to  control  His  universe,  He  must  be  able  to  control 
man  in  the  precise  way  in  which  man's  nature 
instinctively  demands  to  be  controlled,  that  is,  by 
personal  influence.  Hence  He  must  Himself  at 
least  be  personal.  *  Supra-personal '  is  thought  by 
some  to  be  more  descriptive  of  a  personality  that 
must  infinitely  transcend  our  own.  And  the  term 
may  be  permissible,  if  it  is  clearly  understood  to 
imply  the  inclusion  of  the  essential  attributes  of 
personality;  as  we  might  call  chemical  pheno- 
mena supra-mechanical,  or  vital  phenomena  supra- 
chemical  ;  meaning  that  in  each  case  the  higher 
order  included  and  utilized  the  lower.  But  in 
fact  the  term  *  supra-personal '  is  often  taken  to 
imply  such  an  absorption  of  personality  as  would 


viil        THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY        159 

obliterate  its  distinctive  features ;  much  as  water  in 
absorbing  a  crystal  destroys  its  unity  and  form.  In 
this  sense  the  word  is  merely  a  disguised,  and 
therefore  misleading  synonym,  for  the  plainer  term 
'  impersonal,'  of  which  it  must  in  consequence  share 
the  fate. 

To  resume  then,  any  adequate  notion  that  we 
can  form  of  God  must  include  the  capacity  for 
influencing  persons  ;  and  persons,  in  the  last  resort, 
can  only  be  influenced  by  love.  For  appeals  to 
the  reason,  and  even  appeals  to  the  conscience,  are 
partial  in  their  effect,  and  do  not  comprehend  the 
entire  man.  But  appeals  to  the  heart  compel  the 
allegiance  of  our  whole  personality ;  and  are  more- 
over the  sole  form  of  compulsion  to  which  a  being 
endowed  with  freedom,  can,  without  loss  of  his 
integrity,  submit.  If  therefore  God  is  to  be  master 
of  the  human  element  in  His  universe,  He  must  be 
so  by  appealing  to  its  love. 

*  For  the  loving  worm  within  its  clod, 
Were  diviner  than  a  loveless  god 
Amid  his  worlds,  I  will  dare  to  say^.' 

Hence  the  superiority  of  the  Christian  to  all 
other  theologies.  The  God  of  Plato,  the  God  of 
Aristotle,  the  God  of  Spinoza,  cannot  appeal  to  the 
heart.  They  cannot  hold  the  universe  together,  for 
there  is  a  thing  in  the  universe  which  eludes  their 

*  Browning,  Christmas  Eve. 


i6o      THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY     [chap. 

grasp  ;  and  to  that  extent,  therefore,  at  least,  they 
are  not  gods.  The  same  may  be  said  of  all 
unitarian  or  Sabellian  conceptions.  They  leave 
no  room  for  attributing  love,  in  any  intelligible 
sense,  to  the  divine  nature  ;  and  cannot  therefore 
satisfy  the  craving  of  humanity  for  union  with 
a  Being  who  loves  because  He  must,  who  loves 
because  His  essence  is  love.  Love,  in  a  word,  is 
the  sole  solution  of  life's  problem  ;  and  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  is  the  sole  metaphysic  of  love.  Of 
course  if  it  were  only  a  metaphysical  theory,  it 
would  have  no  advantage,  except  that  of  greater 
probability,  over  other  theories ;  but  its  distinction 
is  that  it  did  not  enter  the  world  in  theoretic  but  in 
practical  form. 

Jesus  Christ  came  speaking  in  simplest  language 
of  the  love  of  God  ;  and  then  of  Himself,  to  an 
inner  circle,  as  the  proof  and  exhibition  of  that 
love  ;  and  then  of  those  relationships  within  the 
Godhead  which  made  His  Incarnation  possible  in 
fact,  and  capable  of  being  in  a  measure  compre- 
hended in  thought  And  there  is  congruity  in  this. 
True  love  does  not  speak  without  acting  ;  and  the 
proclamation  that  God  is  love  would  have  been 
self-contradictory,  if  it  had  not  been  accompanied 
by  its  own  practical  proof  The  fact  of  the  Incar- 
nation came  first,  and  then  its  doctrine;  but  the 
two  involve  and  presuppose  each  other.  Now  men 
forget  this  fact  when  they  speak  lightly  of  the 


vii]        THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY        i6i 

doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  as  if  it  were  a  mere 
speculative  paradox,  wholly  out  of  relation  to  the 
practical  needs  of  a  practical  age  ;  they  forget  that 
it  supports  and  is  supported  by  the  whole  weight 
of  a  fact  in  history,  with  which  nothing  else  in  the 
wide  world  can  even  for  a  moment  be  compared. 
That  fact  is  the  age-long  empire  of  Jesus  Christ 
over  the  hearts  of  men.  The  picture  of  that  empire 
has  been  drawn  with  unrivalled  power,  and  its 
significance  pressed  home  with  unanswerable  logic 
by  the  great  French  preacher  of  our  age ;  but 
nevertheless  in  much  current  controversy  its  evi- 
dential value  is  ignored.  Yet  there  it  is,  an  unique 
fact,  that  has  lasted  now  through  nineteen  centuries, 
and  is,  without  question,  as  energetic  in  the  world 
to-day,  as  in  any  bygone  age.  The  survey  of  man's 
nature  assures  us  that  its  only  key  is  love,  and  we 
are  forced  to  infer  that  if  God  controls  the  universe 
by  laws  appropriate  to  its  modes  of  being.  He  must 
draw  humanity  by  the  cords  of  a  man,  that  is  by 
the  law  of  love.  One  has  come,  claiming  to  be  God 
made  manifest, — manifest  in  order  to  attract  our 
love.  He  has  attracted  and  retained  it : — '  with 
limitations,'  it  will  be  said.  Yes,  with  limitations, 
but  limitations  which  Himself  predicted  as  exactly 
as  He  predicted  the  attraction  that  should  know  no 
end.  So  that,  in  fact,  the  perpetual  miracle  of  the 
love  that  He  inspires  is  enhanced  by  the  prophetic 
power  that  foretold  its  course. 

M 


r6a     THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY     [chap. 

This  then  is  the  position  of  the  Christian  theology. 
It  presents  us  with  a  doctrine  of  God,  which,  while 
claiming  to  be  revealed,  justifies  the  claim  by  being 
clearer  than  any  adverse  view.  And  moreover  it 
presents  this  doctrine  supported  by  a  great  historic 
fact — the  greatest,  the  most  wonderful,  the  most 
important  fact  in  history.  This  fact,  the  empire  of 
Christ,  so  supernatural  and  yet  so  human,  presup- 
poses the  truth  of  the  doctrine,  and  could  not 
otherwise  have  come  to  pass ;  while  on  the  other 
hand  the  doctrine  finds  its  natural,  its  necessary 
outcome,  in  the  historical  occurrence  of  the  fact. 

Now  this  is  a  combination  of  theory  and  practice, 
thought  and  thing,  that  should  appeal  with  especial 
power  to  the  mind  of  a  practical  age.  For  practical 
men,  who  are  in  any  sense  to  be  worthy  of  the 
name,  will  be  the  first  to  admit  that  action  pre- 
supposes reflection,  practice  rests  on  principle; 
while  success  in  our  active  efforts  is  the  gauge  and 
guarantee  of  soundness  in  the  thoughts  from  which 
they  spring.  Hence  the  supremacy  of  the  Christian 
religion  in  the  field  of  practical  achievement  should 
commend,  to  men  of  action,  the  central  doctrine  it 
involves. 

That  it  has  been,  and  is,  so  supreme  in  achieve- 
ment, few  serious  thinkers  will  deny.  For  it  has 
inspired  a  love  which,  both  in  kind  and  degree, 
remains,  as  we  have  seen,  unique.  It  has  quickened 
by  its  presence  all  the  forces  that  make  for  progress, 


vn]        THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY       163 

even  in  what  are  called  the  secular  movements  of 
the  world :  while  among  the  dim  sad  things  of  life, 
which  no  secular  progress  can  remove — poverty, 
pain,  shame,  sorrow,  doubt,  despondency,  and  death, 
— it  reigns,  as  the  great  consoler,  incontestably 
alone. 

What  then  is  the  real  root  of  the  objection  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation,  if  it  is 
neither  speculative  improbability,  nor  want  of  prac- 
tical support  ?  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the 
secret  cause  of  its  unpopularity  consists  in  its  claim 
to  be  a  revelation  from  God.  Such  a  claim  of 
course  cannot  fail  to  provoke  antagonism  in  many 
minds,  by  the  demand  upon  character  and  conduct 
which  it  inevitably  makes ;  and  this  antagonism 
may  exist  as  an  unconscious  bias  even  among  men, 
who,  without  being  otherwise  immoral,  yet  shrink 
from  the  spiritual  progress  that  a  definite  revelation 
is  felt  to  imply.  But  apart  from  this  moral  draw- 
back, common  to  all  ages,  modern  thinkers  have  an 
objection  of  their  own.  The  unity  of  nature,  they 
urge,  and  the  uniform  action  of  its  laws,  create  a 
presumption  against  personal  divine  interference, 
of  which  unscientific  minds  and  ages  cannot  appre- 
ciate the  weight.  Without  further  pausing  on  the 
philosophical  criticism  to  which  this  argument  is 
open,  it  will  be  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose  to 
call  attention  to  one  fact.  Nature  includes  human 
nature ;  and 

Ma 


x64     THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  TRINITY     [chap. 

"Man,  once  descried,  imprints  for  ever 
His  presence  on  all  lifeless  things." 

Human  nature  is  an  integral  portion  of  our  sum 
total  of  experience ;  and  while  comprising  instances 
within  itself  of  all  the  classes  of  phenomena,  that 
nature  elsewhere  exhibits  in  a  wider  way — 
mechanism,  chemistry,  energy,  organization,  life — 
it  possesses  other  characteristics  which  are  pecu- 
liarly its  own.  And  while  the  study  of  external 
nature  is  confessedly  a  thing  of  yesterday,  the  study 
of  the  human  spirit  is  as  old  as  its  records  of  itself, 
and  has  been  conducted  by  many  a  genius,  before 
which  modern  names  grow  pale. 

Now  religious  instincts  and  aspirations  are,  as  is 
perfectly  well  known,  among  the  deepest,  the  most 
universal,  the  most  essential  attributes  of  man. 
These  instincts,  from  time  immemorial,  have  craved 
a  revelation,  and  the  Christian  revelation  meets  and 
satisfies  this  craving,  in  a  manner  and  a  measure 
that  are  alike  unique.  At  least  then  it  is  entitled 
to  the  same  consideration  as  would  be  accorded  to 
a  scientific  theory,  in  parallel  case.  Modern  science 
is  familiar  with  theories,  which  are  far  from  possi- 
bility of  proof,  and  yet,  from  their  correspondence 
with  the  facts  of  experience,  are  regarded  as  prac- 
tically true.  We  may  reasonably  claim  therefore 
that  if  tested,  as  we  test  other  hypotheses,  the 
Christian  revelation  stands  in  similar  case.  It  fits 
the  facts  within  its  province,  as  no  other  scheme 


vn]       THE  lACARNATJON  AND  THE  TRINITY        165 

can  fit  them ;  and  that,  without  conflicting  with 
any  other  kinds  of  fact :  whereas  its  rivals  are  all 
partial,  and  however  much  they  may  explain,  leave 
life,  and  love,  and  death,  and  spiritual  experience 
unexplained.  Yet  if  the  world  can  be  explained  at 
all,  and  is  therefore  rational,  as  all  science  is  bound 
to  maintain,  its  highest  product,  the  human  spirit, 
must  be  rational  and  explicable  too ;  and  some 
answer  to  its  aspirations,  some  solution  of  its 
problems  must  exist.  Why  should  not  the  one 
answer  which  has  appeared,  and  is  adequate,  be 
true? 

'So,  the  All-Great,  were  the  All-Loving  too — 
So,  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying,  "  O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here ! 
Face,  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself. 
Thou  hast  no  power  nor  may'st  conceive  of  mine, 
But  love   I   gave  thee,  with  myself  to  love. 
And  thou  must  love  me  who  have  died  for  thee  1^*" 

^  Browning,  An  EpistU. 


APPENDIX 

I.     PERSONAL   IDENTITY 

*  A  PERSON,'  says  Reid, '  is  something  indivisible, 
-*~^  and  is  what  Leibnitz  calls  a  monad.  My  per- 
sonal identity,  therefore,  implies  the  continued  exis- 
tence of  that  indivisible  thing  which  I  call  myself. 
Whatever  this  self  may  be,  it  is  something  which 
thinks,  and  deliberates,  and  resolves,  and  acts,  and 
suffers.  I  am  not  thought,  I  am  not  action,  I  am  not 
feeling  ;  I  am  something  that  thinks,  and  acts,  and 
suffers.  My  thoughts,  and  actions,  and  feelings, 
change  every  moment — they  have  no  continued, 
but  a  successive  existence  ;  but  that  self  or  I,  to 
which  they  belong,  is  permanent,  and  has  the  same 
relation  to  all  the  succeeding  thoughts,  actions,  and 
feelings,  which  I  call  mine.  .  .  .  The  proper  evidence 
I  have  of  all  this  is  remembrance. 

'The  conviction  which  every  man  has  of  his 
identity,  as  far  back  as  his  memory  reaches,  needs 
no  aid  of  philosophy  to  strengthen  it ;  and  no 
philosophy  can  weaken  it,  without  first  producing 


i68  APPENDIX 

some  degree  of  insanity.  We  probably  at  first 
derive  our  notion  of  identity  from  that  natural 
conviction  which  every  man  has  from  the  dawn  of 
reason  of  his  own  identity  and  continued  existence. 
The  identity  which  we  ascribe  to  bodies  ...  is  not 
perfect  identity.  ...  It  admits  of  a  great  change 
of  subject,  provided  the  change  be  gradual.  .  .  . 
But  identity,  when  applied  to  persons,  has  no  ambi- 
guity, and  admits  not  of  degrees,  or  of  more  and 
less.  It  is  the  foundation  of  all  rights  and  obliga- 
tions, and  of  all  accountableness,  and  the  notion  of 
it  is  fixed  and  precise.'  (Reid,  Intell.  Powers^  iii. 
C.4.) 

'  When  it  is  asked,'  says  Butler, '  wherein  personal 
identity  consists,  the  answer  should  be  the  same,  as 
if  it  were  asked,  wherein  consists  similitude,  or 
equality;  that  all  attempts  to  define  would  but 
perplex  it.  Yet  there  is  no  difficulty  at  all  in 
ascertaining  the  idea.  For  as,  upon  two  triangles 
being  compared  or  viewed  together,  there  arises  to 
the  mind  the  idea  of  similitude  ;  or  upon  twice  two 
and  four,  the  idea  of  equality :  so  likewise,  upon 
comparing  the  consciousnesses  of  one's  self,  or  one's 
own  existence,  in  any  two  moments,  there  as  imme- 
diately arises  to  the  mind  the  idea  of  personal 
identity.  .  .  .  And  though  the  successive  conscious- 
nesses, which  we  have  of  our  own  existence,  are  not 
the  same,  yet  are  they  consciousnesses  of  one  and 


/.      PERSONAL   IDENTITY  169 

the  same  thing  or  object ;  of  the  same  person, 
self,  or  living  agent.  The  person,  of  whose  exis- 
tence the  consciousness  is  felt  now,  and  was  felt  an 
hour  or  a  year  ago,  is  discerned  to  be,  not  two 
persons,  but  one  and  the  same  person  ;  and  there- 
fore is  one  and  the  same.  .  .  .  And  one  should 
really  think  it  self-evident,  that  consciousness  of 
personal  identity  presupposes,  and  therefore  cannot 
constitute,  personal  identity ;  any  more  than  know- 
ledge, in  any  other  case,  can  constitute  truth,  which 
it  presupposes.'     {Of  Personal  Identity.) 

The  above  passages  indicate  with  sufficient  clear- 
ness what  we  mean  by  personal  identity.  It  is 
a  fact,  thus  understood,  of  every  sane  man's  inner 
experience,  an  ultimate  fact  which  we  cannot  get 
behind.  Common  sense  and  sound  metaphysic  are 
agreed  upon  the  point.  But  there  is  a  vague  notion, 
in  some  quarters,  that  the  conception  of  personal 
identity  as  thus  described,  has  been  discredited  by 
the  investigations  of  physiological  psychology.  It 
may  be  well  therefore  to  point  out  why  this  is  not, 
and,  in  the  nature  of  things,  cannot  be  the  case. 
And  this  will  perhaps  best  be  seen  if  we  confront 
with  the  above  passages  a  typical  statement  of  the 
physiological  point  of  view,  from  M.  Ribot's 
Diseases  of  Personality, 

'  The  organism  and  the  brain,  as  its  highest 
representation,  constitute  the  real  personality,  con- 


I70  APPENDIX 

taining  in  itself  all  that  we  have  been  and  the 
possibilities  of  all  that  we  shall  be.  The  whole 
individual  character  is  inscribed  there  with  all  its 
active  and  passive  aptitudes,  sympathies,  and  an- 
tipathies ;  its  genius,  talents,  or  stupidity ;  its 
virtues,  vices,  torpor,  or  activity.  What  emerges 
and  reaches  consciousness  is  little  only  compared 
with  what  lies  buried  below,  albeit  still  active. 
Conscious  personality  is  never  more  than  a  feeble 
portion  of  physical  personality.  The  unity  of  the 
ego,  accordingly,  is  not  that  of  the  single  entity  of 
spiritualists,  dispersing  itself  into  multiple  pheno- 
mena, but  the  co-ordination  of  a  certain  number  of 
incessantly  renascent  states,  having  for  their  sole 
support  the  vague  sense  of  the  body.  This  unity 
does  not  pass  from  above  to  below,  but  from  below 
to  above  ;  it  is  not  an  initial,  but  a  terminal  point. 
.  .  .  The  unity  of  the  ego,  in  a  psychological  sense, 
is,  accordingly,  the  cohesion,  during  a  given  period, 
of  a  certain  number  of  distinct  states  of  conscious- 
ness, accompanied  by  others  less  distinct,  and  by 
a  multitude  of  physiological  states  which,  though 
not  accompanied  by  consciousness  like  the  others, 
yet  operate  as  powerfully  as  they,  if  not  more  so. 
Unity  means  co-ordination.'  (RiBOT,  Diseases  of 
Personality,  Eng.  Trans.) 

Now  the  experience  which  this  passage  attempts 
to  explain  away,  is,  as  above  stated,  a  fact  of  our 


/.      PERSONAL  IDENTITY  171 

internal  consciousness :  but  the  evidence  on  which 
the  explanation  rests,  is  a  collection  of  external  ob- 
servations— observations  of  different  organic  func- 
tions, effects  of  physical  temperament,  bodily  moods, 
perversions  of  sensibility,  monstrous  births,  diseases, 
insanity,  hypnotic  conditions,  and  the  like. 

It  will  be  obvious  at  a  glance,  therefore,  that 
the  entire  passage  is,  from  first  to  last,  a  petitio 
principii.  It  begs  the  question  at  issue ;  as  has 
always  been  the  case,  since  the  days  when  Cud- 
worth  said  of  Hobbes  and  his  followers,  they  '  do 
plainly  dance  round  in  a  circle.'  For  the  gulf 
between  our  knowledge  of  matter  and  our  know- 
ledge of  spirit  is  impassable.  From  the  outside 
we  can  never  see  a  movement  think ;  and  from 
the  inside  we  can  never  feel  a  thought  move.  And 
as  long  as  this  is  the  case,  we  can  tell  absolutely 
nothing  of  the  ultimate  nature  of  their  relationship. 
But  this  gulf,  in  the  passage  before  us,  is  leaped  at 
a  bound, '  The  organism  constitutes  the  personality.' 
.  .  . '  The  unity  is  not  that  of  the  spiritualists.'  .  .  . 
'  The  unity  of  the  ego  is  the  cohesion,*  &c.  Each 
of  these  phrases  is  an  assertion  that  there  is  no 
more  in  the  spiritual  element  of  personality  than 
can  be  discerned  from  the  material  side.  And 
this  is  no  accidental  illogicality  of  the  particular 
writer ;  it  is  inherent  in  his  point  of  view.  Any 
attempt  to  dissolve  the  unity,  which  we  only  know 
as  a  fact  of  internal  consciousness,  into  elements 


xja  APPENDIX 

which  we  only  know  as  facts  of  external  observa- 
tion, must  beg  the  question. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  more  cautious  psycho- 
logists are  aware  of  this,  as  the  following  passages 
from  Hoffding  may  show : — 

*  Even  though  the  individual  organism,  which  in 
spite  of  its  completeness  and  relative  independence 
is  still  a  republic  of  cells,  were  to  be  explained  as 
compounded  out  of  elements,  and  its  origin  made 
intelligible  through  the  law  of  the  persistence  of 
energy,  this  would  not  explain  the  individual  con- 
sciousness, the  formation  of  a  special  centre  of 
memory,  of  action,  and  of  suffering.  That  it  is 
possible  for  such  an  inner  centre  to  come  into 
being  is  the  fundamental  problem  of  all  our 
knowledge.  Each  individual  trait,  each  individual 
property,  might  perhaps  be  explained  by  the 
power  of  heredity  and  the  influence  of  experience ; 
but  the  inner  unity,  to  which  all  elements  refer, 
and  by  virtue  of  which  the  individuality  is  a 
psychical  individuality,  remains  for  us  an  eternal 
riddle.  ...  It  is  impossible  to  apply  to  the  mental 
province  anything  analogous  to  the  persistence  of 
energy.  Psychical  individuality  is  one  of  the 
practical  limits  of  science.' 

*  The  peculiarity  of  the  phenomena  of  conscious- 
ness, as  contrasted  with  the  subject-matter  of  the 


/.      PERSONAL   IDENTITY  173 

science  of  external  nature — material  phenomena — 
is  precisely  that  inner  connexion  between  the 
individual  elements  in  virtue  of  which  they  appear 
as  belonging  to  one  and  the  same  subject' 

'  Physiology,  like  every  natural  science,  explains 
a  material  process  by  means  of  other  material 
processes.  Its  assumptions  are  not  framed  to  include 
a  case  in  which  one  member  of  the  causal  relation 
shall  be  spatial,  the  other  non-spatial.' 

*  Mental  existence  .  .  .  has  for  its  fundamental 
form,  memory,  synthesis ;  and  synthesis  presupposes 
individuality.  The  material  world  shows  us  no 
real  individualities,  these  are  first  known  to  the 
psychological  standpoint,  from  which  inner  centres 
of  memory,  action,  and  endurance  are  discovered.' 

*  In  recognition  and  in  memory  is  expressed  an 
inner  unity,  to  which  the  material  world  affords  no 
parallel.'  (Hoffding,  Outlines  of  Psychology ^Eng. 
Trans.) 

These  statements  are  especially  noteworthy,  as 
coming  from  an  empirical  psychologist. 

But  it  may  be  urged  that  though  not  logically 
demonstrable,  the  physical  analysis  of  personality 
rests  on  so  many  analogies  as  to  be  highly  probable. 
This  again  cannot  be  maintained  as  long  as  the 
gulf  in  question  remains  unbridged.  For  the  two 
sets  of  facts  have   nothing  in   common,  and  no 


174  APPENDIX 

analogy  can  extend  from  one  region  to  the  other. 
Compare  Professor  T.  H.  Green : — 

*  If  the  function  relative  to  our  consciousness, 
which  belongs  to  neural  process,  were  involved  in 
our  consciousness  in  the  same  way  in  which  chemical 
processes  are  involved  in  those  of  animal  life,  every 
step  gained  in  our  acquaintance  with  this  function 
would  also  advance  our  knowledge  of  consciousness. 
But  it  is  not  so.  There  is  no  continuance  of  neural 
process  into  our  consciousness  as  there  is  of 
chemical  processes  into  life.  Life  is  indeed  more 
and  other  than  chemical  changes;  these  changes 
only  contribute  to  it  in  a  living  organism ;  but 
they  do  enter  into  it,  are  ascertainable  elements 
in  it.  If  chemistry  cannot  tell  us  how  the  living 
body  is  constructed,  it  yet  can  tell  us  of  what  it 
is  constructed.  If  we  analyze  the  growth  of  a 
tissue,  or  the  formation  of  the  blood,  into  its  con- 
stituent processes,  we  find  at  any  rate  among  these 
such  as  are  strictly  chemical.  It  may  not  be 
a  complete  account  of  the  origin  of  animal  heat 
to  say  that  it  results  from  the  union  of  oxygen, 
derived  through  respiration  from  the  atmosphere, 
with  the  carbon  contained  in  certain  food-stuffs ; 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  such  oxidation  is  a 
constituent  in  its  production.  But  when  we  analyze 
any  determination  or  mode  of  consciousness,  we  do 
not  come  upon  neural  tremors.     If  we  take  the 


/.      PERSONAL   IDENTITY  175 

physiologist's  consciousness  of  the  function  of 
the  brain,  or  the  musician's  of  a  tune  which  he 
"carries  in  his  head,"  and  inquire  what  are  its 
constituents,  what  are  the  conditions  which  together 
make  it  what  it  is,  it  is  with  ideas  or  determina- 
tions of  consciousness  that  we  are  left  in  the  last 
resort.  Nothing  that  the  physiologist  can  detect 
— no  irritation,  no  irradiation,  or  affection  of  a 
sensitive  organ — enters  into  it  at  all.  The  relations 
which  these  terms  represent  are  all  of  a  kind 
absolutely  heterogeneous  to,  and  incompatible  with, 
the  mutual  determination  of  ideas  in  the  unity  of 
consciousness.  They  all  imply  distinctions  of  space 
and  time  which  that  unity  perhaps  renders  possible, 
but  which  it  excludes  from  itself.'  (GREEN,  Phil. 
Works,  i.  475-) 

And  again, — 

*  The  sentient  organism  is  not  in  any  proper  sense 
the  subject  of  the  feelings  to  which  it  is  organic. 
It  is  not  conscious  of  them  as  its  feelings.  If  the 
expression  may  be  pardoned,  it  is  not  an  //  for  itself 
at  all,  but  only  for  us.  The  apparatus  of  nerve  and 
tissue  has  no  unity  for  itself,  but  only  for  us,  to 
whom  it  presents  itself  as  one  in  virtue  of  its  function. 
Its  unity  means  merely  the  combined  action  of  many 
elements,  in  relation  to  one  irresoluble  effect,  viz. 
feeling.  The  conversion  of  successive  feelings  into 
an  experience,  on  the  other  hand,  implies  a  subject 


176  APPENDIX 

consciously  relating  them  to  itself,  and  at  once 
rendering  them  a  manifold  (which  in  themselves,  as 
successively  vanishing,  they  are  not),  and  unifying 
this  manifold  by  means  of  that  relation.  Such  a  sub- 
ject has  or  is  the  unity  which,  under  the  name  of 
our  understanding,  enables  us  to  find  community 
of  function  in  the  elements  of  the  sentient  organism, 
and  which  thus  renders  it,  derivatively,  one  for  us. 
To  imagine  an  "evolution"  of  the  self-conscious 
subject  from  the  gathered  experience  of  the  sentient 
organism — an  evolution  of  the  unifying  agent  from 
that  which  it  renders  one — is  the  last  form  which  the 
standing  vorepoy  itportpov  of  empirical  psychology 
has  assumed.'     (Green,  Works,  i.  466.) 

The  first  objection  therefore  to  our  regarding 
personality  as  a  mere  product  of  the  bodily  organ- 
ism is,  that  the  attempt  to  do  so  involves  a  logical 
fallacy.  But  there  is  a  more  important  metaphysical 
objection  to  which  Professor  Green  alludes,  in  the 
above  passages,  and  which  it  is  the  especial  object 
of  his  elaborate  criticism  of  the  empirical  psychology 
to  exhibit.  Briefly  it  is,  that  all  knowledge  of 
objects  must  presuppose  a  subject;  which  cannot 
therefore  be  derived  from  the  things  of  whose  intel- 
ligibility it  is  itself  the  constitutive  condition.  This 
is  very  clearly  put  by  Lotze,  in  a  passage  which 
I  have  quoted  elsewhere ;  but  whose  importance  may 
justify  its  repetition  in  the  present  context 


/.      PERSONAL   IDENTITY  177 

*  It  has  been  required  of  any  theory  which  starts 
without  presuppositions  and  from  the  basis  of  ex- 
perience, that  in  the  beginning  it  should  speak  only 
of  sensations  or  ideas,  without  mentioning  the  soul 
to  which,  it  is  said,  we  hasten  without  justification  to 
ascribe  them.  I  should  maintain,  on  the  contrary, 
that  such  a  mode  of  setting  out  involves  a  wilful 
departure  from  that  which  is  actually  given  in  expe- 
rience. A  mere  sensation  without  a  subject  is 
nowhere  to  be  met  with  as  a  fact.  It  is  impossible 
to  speak  of  a  bare  movement  without  thinking  of 
the  mass  whose  movement  it  is ;  and  it  is  just  as 
impossible  to  conceive  a  sensation  existing  without 
the  accompanying  idea  of  that  which  has  it — or, 
rather,  of  that  which  feels  it ;  for  this  also  is  in- 
cluded in  the  given  fact  of  experience  that  the 
relation  of  the  feeling  subject  to  its  feeling,  what- 
ever its  other  characteristics  may  be,  is  in  any  case 
something  different  from  the  relation  of  the  moved 
element  to  its  movement.  It  is  thus,  and  thus  only, 
that  the  sensation  is  a  given  fact ;  and  we  have  no 
right  to  abstract  from  its  relation  to  its  subject 
because  this  relation  is  puzzling,  and  because  we 
wish  to  obtain  a  starting-point  which  looks  more 
convenient  but  is  utterly  unwarranted  by  experience. 
.  .  .  Any  comparison  of  two  ideas,  which  ends  by 
our  finding  their  contents  like  or  unlike,  presupposes 
the  absolutely  indivisible  unity  of  that  which  com- 
pares them.  .  .  .  And  so  our  whole  inner  world  of 

N 


178  APPENDIX 

thoughts  is  built  up ;  not  as  a  mere  collection  of 
manifold  ideas  existing  with  or  after  one  another,  but 
as  a  world  in  which  these  individual  members  are 
held  together  and  arranged  by  the  relating  activity 
of  this  single  pervading  principle.  This  then  is 
what  we  mean  by  the  unity  of  consciousness ;  and 
it  is  this  that  we  regard  as  the  sufficient  ground  for 
assuming  an  indivisible  soul.'     [Metaphysic^  §  241.) 

The  result  of  Professor  Green's  analysis  of  Locke, 
Hume,  Spencer,  and  Lewis  {Philosophical  Works, 
vol,  i)  is  to  show  that  this  principle  cannot  be 
explained  away  without  first  being  tacitly  assumed  ; 
or  in  other  words  that  it  is  the  inevitable  prius  of 
all  knowledge.     In  brief  he  says : — 

'  The  one  consciousness,  equally  present  to,  yet 
distinguishing  itself  from,  successive  feelings,  without 
which  there  could  be  no  such  synthesis  of  them  as 
is  necessary  to  a  recognition  of  their  difference  in 
kind  and  degree,  and  to  their  constituting  a  con- 
sciousness of  change,  is  first  taken  for  granted  and 
then  represented  as  resulting  from  the  synthesis 
which  presupposes  it.  It  must  be  presupposed,  in 
order  to  the  possibility  of  feelings  being  held  to- 
gether as  related  by  the  subject  which  experiences 
them,  and  except  as  so  held  together  they  give  no 
'•  materials  for  its  establishment."  * 

One  more  statement  of  the  case  may  be  quoted, 
for  its  clearness,  from  Mr.  D'Arcy : — 


/.      PERSONAL   IDENTITY  S79 

'  Self-consciousness  consists  not  merely  in  having 
feelings  or  thoughts,  but  in  that  consciousness  which 
becomes  explicit  in  the  recognition  of  a  feeling  as 
"  my"  feeling,  a  thought  as  "  my  "  thought,  a  book 
as  the  book  which  "  I "  see  or  touch  or  read.  Self- 
consciousness  is  the  strange  power  which  the  mind 
possesses  of  objectifying  itself.  It  is  implicit  in  all 
experience ;  for,  otherwise,  experience  is  impossible. 
The  unifying  agency  of  the  self,  by  which  it  passes 
from  self  to  not-self  and  from  every  element  in  the 
not-self  to  every  other  element  and  combines  all  in 
one,  is  essentially  the  agency  of  self-consciousness. 
The  subject  is  a  unifying  principle  only  in  so  far  as 
it  is  self-conscious,  i.e.  in  so  far  as  it  is  able  to  rise 
above  itself  and  its  own  opposition  to  the  object. 
The  objectified  self  is  therefore  no  "  group  of  mental 
states  which  form  a  permanent  nucleus  in  the  mental 
history."  (ALEXANDER,  Moral  Order  and  Progress, 
p.  75.)  No  group  of  mental  states  could  ever  form 
a  self  in  any  but  an  improper  (or  derivative)  sense 
of  the  term,  for  every  group  needs  the  self  to  consti- 
tute it,  and  in  the  very  act  of  constituting  it  the 
self  must  be  already  implicitly  self-conscious  or  the 
act  could  never  take  place.  Self-consciousness  is 
presupposed  in  the  very  formation  of  this  so-called 
"empirical  self."  This  empirical  self  is  no  more 
properly  called  "  the  self"  than  the  body  is  properly 
called  "the  person.'"  (D'Arcy,  Short  Study  of 
Ethics,  p.  12.) 

Na 


i8o  APPENDIX 

The  difficulty  that  is  often  experienced  in  real- 
izing the  cogency  of  this  reasoning  arises  simply 
from  the  fact  of  its  being  metaphysical.  And  some 
writers  and  thinkers  have  endeavoured  accordingly 
to  supplement  it  by  empirical  evidence,  drawn  from 
the  phenomena  of  sleep,  somnambulism,  trance,  and 
abnormal  'psychical'  manifestations,  and  indicating 
the  existence  of  a  self  or  soul  that  is  independent 
of  the  bodily  organism.  But  this  is  an  argument 
whose  weight  must,  after  all,  be  inevitably  confined 
to  those  who  have  had  sufficient  experience  of  the 
evidence  in  question  to  be  convinced  by  it.  And 
though  it  may  be  useful  as  a  counterblast  to 
empiricism  on  the  opposite  side,  it  does  not  possess 
the  rigorous  necessity  of  metaphysical  demonstra- 
tion. For  the  point  is  essentially  a  metaphysical 
one — and  its  proper  proof  therefore  is  metaphysical. 
I  can  only  use  my  faculties  as  I  do,  because  I  am 
a  self-conscious  being;  and  their  use  can  neither 
create  nor  exhibit  what  is  the  necessary  presup- 
position of  their  use ;  any  more  than  my  senses  can 
create  or  exhibit,  in  the  act  and  moment  of  my  using 
them,  the  nervous  mechanism  on  which  they  depend. 

For  a  full  treatment  of  the  question,  see  Green 
( Works,  vol.  i),  and  for  a  further  criticism  of  some 
recent  writers,  Ladd  {Philosophy  of  MtJid). 

But  it  is  in  the  moral  region,  as  stated  in  the 
text,  that  our  personal  identity  becomes  most  plain. 
Self-consciousness  indeed  is  the  necessary  presup- 


/.      PERSONAL   IDENTITY  i8i 

position  of  self-determination,  and  therefore  of 
morality,  but  it  is  in  the  concrete  form  of  moral 
conduct  that  it  is  most  easily  recognized  by  the 
majority  of  men.  I  am  conscious  of  being  morally 
responsible  for  what  I  remember  doing  ten,  twenty, 
thirty,  forty  years  ago.  I  am  certain  that  I  am  the 
same  person  who  at  those  dates  made  a  free  choice 
between  good  and  evil,  and  both  this  identity  and 
this  freedom  place  me  in  a  category  which — if  the 
term  nature  is  to  be  used  as  synonymous  with 
the  realm  of  physical  causation — must  be  termed 
supernatural.  This  again  is  a  point  which  has  been 
elaborately  demonstrated  by  Professor  Green  in  his 
Prolegomena  to  Ethics:  and  that  it  should  be  re- 
garded by  the  empirical  psychologists  as  an  illusion 
(HOFFDING,  vii.  B.  4)  need  not  in  any  way  disturb 
us,  as  this  inevitably  follows  from  their  failure  to 
recognize  the  true  nature  of  the  self-consciousness 
upon  which  it  depends. 

This  permanent  self  then,  which  is  the  subject 
of  all  our  thoughts,  and  which  we  know  by  self- 
consciousness,  and  can  know  in  no  other  way,  is 
the  basis  of  our  personality,  in  the  sense  of  being 
that  which  makes  us  persons.  It  is  not  our  entire 
personality,  when  personality  is  used  in  the  sense  of 
concrete  character,  any  more  than  the  seed  is  the 
full-blown  flower;  but  it  is  that  which  makes 
the  development  of  our  concrete  character  possible. 
And  it  would  contribute  to  clearness  of  thought,  if 


zte  APPENDIX 

the  term  '  personality '  were  reserved  to  denote  the 
quality  of  being  a  person,  or  self-conscious  subject ; 
while  *  mood  '  and  '  character '  are  used  to  designate 
the  particular  state  or  kind  of  person.  In  popular 
language,  for  instance,  we  speak  of  a  person  in 
different  moods  of  joy  and  sorrow  as  being  quite  a 
different  person,  but  when  Mr.  Ribot  does  this  in 
a  scientific  treatise,  the  result  is  destructive  of  all 
accurate  thought. 

A  concrete  person  then,  as  he  knows  himself  from 
within,  is  a  self-conscious  subject  with  a  certain 
character,  existing  in  connexion  with  a  bodily 
organism.  And  though  the  bodily  organism  pro- 
vides material  for  the  formation  of  the  character,  it 
does  not  constitute  it.  A  man  is  not  the  result  of 
his  bodily  organism,  but  of  the  way  in  which  he 
has  reacted  on  his  bodily  organism ;  in  other 
words,  of  his  will.  The  body  has  its  appetites,  its 
instincts,  its  hereditary  tendencies,  its  idiosyncrasies 
of  disposition  and  temperament,  its  nerves  and 
cerebral  impressions.  But  a  man's  character  does 
not  depend  upon  the  mere  existence  of  these 
things,  but  upon  the  use  made  of  them ;  the  way 
in  which  some  have  been  selected  for  encourage- 
ment, and  others  have  been  suppressed  ;  the  par- 
ticular portion  of  the  total  potentiality  which  has 
been  voluntarily  realized.  And  though  it  is  quite 
true,  of  course,  that  there  attach  to  every  man 
a  number  of  minor  characteristics,  which  help  to 


/.      PERSONAL   IDENTITY  i^s 

constitute  his  individuality,  and  yet  have  never 
been  made  objects  of  will,  these  are  essentially 
subordinate  to,  and  qualified  by  the  central  charac- 
ter, which  the  man  has  fashioned  for  himself.  Now 
the  fashioning  of  character  is  a  moral  process.  If 
a  man  makes  no  effort  at  self-control,  but  follows 
the  impulse  of  the  moment,  his  character  becomes 
unstable,  incoherent,  inconsistent,  irregular ;  and  in 
the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  dissolute;  for  its 
elements  are  dissolved,  and  have  no  cohesion  or 
consistence  of  any  kind  ;  it  is  not  a  unity,  but  an 
aggregate  of  states.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man 
pursues  a  high  ideal,  and  pursues  it  with  con- 
sistency, he  learns  by  degrees  to  subordinate  his 
inordinate  impulses  and  instincts ;  to  concentrate 
his  attention  on  one  object ;  to  direct  his  actions 
to  one  end ;  to  intensify,  and  simplify,  and  unify 
his  life.  Thus  his  metaphysical  unity  of  person  is 
realized  in  moral  unity  of  character,  and  he  is  in 
harmony  with  himself  Between  these  two  extremes 
all  human  character  moves ;  as  a  rule  neither  entirely 
uncontrolled,  nor  completely  self-determined ;  the 
flesh  lusting  against  the  spirit,  as  St.  Paul  describes 
it ;  the  charioteer,  in  Plato's  simile,  struggling  with 
unequal  steeds. 

Now  of  the  various  and  often  discordant  elements 
which  appear  in  consciousness,  it  is  only  those 
which  have  been  made  objects  of  will,  and  so 
brought  into  connexion  with  our  moral  being,  that 


i84  APPENDIX 

we  Strictly  consider  parts  of  ourself.  No  one,  for 
example,  feels  responsible  for  the  actions  of  his 
dreams,  because  they  are  not  under  the  control 
of  the  will ;  and  it  is  precisely  the  same,  in  our 
waking  moments,  with  the  various  sensations  and 
suggestions  to  which  our  bodily  organism,  or  the 
outer  world,  give  rise.  They  may  all  be  called  our 
own,  in  the  sense  of  happening  to  us  as  distinct 
from  another  person.  But  they  are  not  parts  of 
our  self  till  we  have  made  them  so  by  voluntary 
acceptance.  The  bad  man  is  so,  not  because  he  is 
aware  of  bad  impulses,  but  because  he  acts  upon 
them;  while  by  the  effort  of  resisting  the  very 
same  impulses,  of  which  he  may  be  equally  aware, 
the  good  man  becomes  good.  And  thus  there  is 
a  great  deal  of  truth  in  the  popular  use  of  language 
which  speaks  of  a  good  man  as  a  man  of  character, 
and  of  a  bad  man  as  a  man  of  no  character.  For 
the  good  man  actually  has  more  character  to  the 
extent  that  he  has  exercised  his  will,  while  the  bad 
man  is,  as  we  often  say,  'not  himself,'  but  the 
creature  of  impulse,  or  the  creature  of  circum- 
stance ;  the  sport  and  plaything  of  external  forces 
— less  like  a  person  than  like  a  thing.  Yet  this 
man  all  the  while  is  metaphysically  speaking  a  self 
or  self-conscious  being,  and  as  such  can  distinguish 
himself  in  thought  from  the  influences  which  he  has 
lost  the  power  to  resist,  with  consequent  feelings 
which  range  from  self-pity  through  self-contempt 


I.      PERSONAL   IDENTITY  aflis 

to  the  deepest  remorse.  And  in  the  many  cases 
where  moral  error  has  gone  so  far  as  to  unhinge 
the  mind,  the  interior  discord  may  easily  give  rise 
to  such  a  sense  of  plural  personality,  as  was  ex- 
pressed in  the  words  'my  name  is  legion,  for  we 
are  many.'  It  may  be  noticed,  for  instance,  that 
the  strongest  cases  of 'plural  personality'  quoted 
by  the  physiologists  are  those  whose  antecedents 
have  been  profoundly  immoral. 

It  is  perfectly  true  therefore  that  our  unity  of 
character  is  a  thing  of  gradual  development,  wrought 
out  of  infinitely  complex  elements,  and  varying  in 
degree ;  and  physiological  psychology  throws  much 
interesting  light  upon  the  material  conditions  of  its 
formation.  But  the  whole  process  is  only  possible 
in  virtue  of  that  self-conscious  personality,  which 
has  no  physiological  analogue  and  can  only  be 
known  from  within.  This  self-conscious  personality 
is,  indeed,  only  known  to  us  in  connexion  with 
a  bodily  organism,  and  totally  disappears  at  its 
dissolution.  But  what  then  disappears,  it  must  be 
remembered,  is  not  merely  our  self-consciousness, 
but  the  concrete  character  which  that  self-conscious- 
ness, in  its  association  with  the  body,  has  gradually 
formed,  the  moralized  or  demoralized  self  Death 
is  an  episode  in  a  moral  as  well  as  a  physical  life, 
and  as  such  must  be  morally  and  therefore  teleo- 
logically  regarded.  We  are  thus  led  to  qualify 
what  the  senses  perceive  in  it  by  what  the  con- 


i86  APPENDIX 

science  demands ;  a  continuation  of  that  moral 
history  which  in  this  life  is  incomplete.  And  the 
same  moral  consciousness  which  assures  us  of  our 
personal  identity  leads  us  to  anticipate  its  con- 
tinued existence.  Thus  the  beginning  and  end  of 
personal  identity  is  metaphysical  and  moral,  and 
morbid  pathology  does  not  affect  it.  For  the  fact 
that  its  manifestation  is  obscured  by  certain  diseases 
is  only  part  of  the  wider  fact  that  it  disappears  at 
death ;  and  if  the  latter  fact  does  not  disconcert 
our  belief,  neither  need  the  former.  Indeed,  both 
Hoffding  and  Ribot,  whom  we  have  quoted  above, 
admit,  though  it  may  be  thought  at  the  cost  of 
their  consistency,  that  there  may  be  a  deeper  point 
of  view  than  the  physiological. 

'  We  note,  incidentally,  that  the  theory  maintained 
here,  although  materialistic  in  form,  can  be  adapted 
to  any  metaphysics.  We  essay  to  reduce  con- 
scious personality  to  its  immediate  conditions — the 
organism.  As  regards  the  final  conditions  of  those 
conditions,  we  have  nothing  to  say.'  (RiBOT, 
Diseases  of  Personality ^  p.  154.) 

•  The  empirical  formula,  with  which  we  here 
end,  does  not  exclude  a  more  comprehensive  meta- 
physical hypothesis.  .  .  .  On  the  contrary,  the  theory 
of  knowledge  leads  us  to  regard  the  phenomena  of 
consciousness  as  the  most  fundamental  facts  in  our 
experience,  since,  looked  at  logically,  the  subjective 


/.      PERSONAL   IDENTITY  187 

point  of  view  is  deeper  than  the  objective.  From 
this  point  of  view  the  most  natural  conception  is 
that  which  regards  the  mental  life  as  the  essential, 
and  the  corresponding  cerebral  activity  as  the  form 
in  which  it  is  manifested  to  sensuous  intuition.' 
(HoFFDiNG,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  ii.  8  d.) 

Much  valuable  sifting  of  the  conception  of  self 
will  be  found  in  Mr.  Bradley's  Appearance  and 
Reality,  where  he  very  truly  remarks  that  '  in  per- 
sonal identity  the  main  point  is  to  fix  the  meaning 
of  person,  and  it  is  chiefly  because  our  ideas  as  to 
this  are  confused  that  we  are  unable  to  come  to  a 
further  result.'  And  though  the  general  tendency 
of  his  criticism  is  at  first  sight  destructive,  he  admits 
that  *  self-sameness  exists  as  a  fact,  and  hence  some- 
how an  identical  self  must  be  real.'  Moreover,  it 
should  be  noticed  that  many  of  the  difficulties  which 
he  raises,  in  connexion  with  this  real  self,  arise  from 
the  peculiar  canon  of  reality  that  he  adopts,  making 
it  impossible  to  predicate  reality  of  anything  but 
the  Absolute  or  God — ens  realissintum  ;  which  in  a 
sense,  of  course,  is  perfectly  true.  But  if  we  arc 
content  to  recognize  degrees  of  reality,  we  may  fairly 
call  the  self,  as  above  described,  the  most  real  thing 
that  we  know,  though  fully  admitting  that  its  reality 
is  and  must  be  derivative  and  dependent  upon  God ; 
while  of  persons,  as  they  exist  in  the  concrete,  those 
who  are  most  moral,  and  therefore  consciously  or 


i88  APPENDIX 

unconsciously  most  united  to  God,  are,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  most  real,  and  intimately  one ;  whereas 
those  who  are  immoral,  and  to  that  extent  alienated 
in  will  from  God,  are  unreal  and  discordant,  to  a 
d^ree  that  raises  a  question  in  our  mind,  at  times, 
whether  dissoluteness  may  not  end  in  dissolution; 
and  the  self  that  has  failed  to  justify  its  existence 
cease  to  exist. 

Briefly  to  resume  then :  there  is — 

I.  A  logical  fallacy  involved  in  the  attempt  to 
resolve  the  personal  identity  of  which  we  are  im- 
mediately conscious  into  elements  which  are  only 
empirically  known : — a  fallacy  which  no  amount 
of  increase  in  our  empirical  knowledge  can  in  the 
slightest  degree  affect. 

a.  Positive  metaphysical  proof  of  our  personal 
identity:  proof  which,  though  metaphysical,  is  in 
no  way  remote  from  common  sense ;  being  simply 
the  justification,  by  philosophical  analysis,  of  what 
common  sense  asserts. 

3.  Moral  evidence,  which  is  still  more  obvious, 
of  the  same  ;  and  which  consists  in  (a)  our  sense  of 
responsibility,  [^)  our  demand  of  immortality. 

And  when  asked  wherein  this  identity  consists, 
we  may  be  content  to  reply  with  Lotze,  '  Every 
soul  is  what  it  shows  itself  to  be,  unity,  whose  life 
is  in  definite  ideas,  feeling,  and  efforts.*  In  other 
words,  we  do  not  attempt  to  explain  this  unity — we 
merely  assert  that  it  exists,  and  that  the  efforts  of 


/.       PERSONAL   IDENTITY  189 

physiology  to  account  for  it  are  transparently  in- 
adequate. There  is  always  a  materialistic  tendency 
abroad  in  the  world,  and  each  new  science  is  pressed 
into  its  service  in  turn.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
physiological  psychology  no  more  makes  for  mate- 
rialism than  astronomy,  or  any  of  the  older  sciences 
which  were  once  thought  so  to  do.  Tennyson  spoke 
as  a  philosopher,  and  not  merely  as  a  poet,  when  he 
said  in  words  with  which  we  are  now  familiar :  *  You 
may  tell  me  that  my  hand  and  my  foot  are  only 
imaginary  symbols  of  my  existence,  I  could  believe 
you ;  but  you  never,  never  can  convince  me  that  the 
/  is  not  an  eternal  Reality,  and  that  the  spiritual  is 
not  the  true  and  real  part  of  me.'   {Life^  ii.  p.  90.) 


II.      FREEWILL 

SOME  passages  from  various  writers  on  the 
subject  of  freewill,  will  be  found  in  a  note  to 
my  lectures  on  Personality  (p.  227):  collected 
partly  to  show  how  strong  a  consensus  of  opinion 
there  is  upon  the  point,  among  writers  of  very 
various  schools,  and  partly  to  emphasize  the  identity 
of  doctrine  contained  in  their  different  phraseology. 
But  here  too,  as  in  the  case  of  self-identity,  we  are 
met  with  objections  drawn  from  physiological 
psychology;  which  may  justify  a  few  further 
remarks  upon  the  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  one  must  recall  the  fact  that 
freewill  (like  personal  identity,  of  which  it  is  a 
function)  is  defended  on  grounds  of  experience, 
and  denied  on  grounds  of  antecedent  improbability. 
As  Dr.  Johnson  once  put  it  when  irritated  with  the 
argument,  'all  theory  is  against  freewill,  but  all 
experience  is  in  its  favour.'  This  is  important  to 
notice,  because  it  is  the  exact  converse  of  what  is 
often  supposed  to  be  the  case;   and  of  what  has 


//.      FREEWILL  X9t 

always  been  the  case,  whenever  physical  science 
has  permanently  altered  popular  opinion.  For 
science  is  based  upon  facts  of  experience,  and 
when  in  conflict  with  popular  prejudice,  the  whole 
secret  of  its  success  has  always  lain  in  its  power  of 
appeal  to  those  facts.  But  in  the  present  instance 
this  is  not  the  case.  The  consciousness  of  freedom 
is  a  fact  of  practically  universal  experience ;  not  of 
reported  experience  in  the  past,  but  of  present  and 
past  experience  alike.  While  its  opponents  ground 
their  opposition,  not  upon  a  refutation  of  the  fact, 
nor  even  upon  its  inconsistency  with  other  facts; 
but  upon  its  inconsistency  with  a  theory  which  they 
have  drawn  from  other  facts,  and  can  only  so  draw 
by  previously  ruling  the  fact  in  question  out  of 
court.  In  other  words,  they  beg  the  question,  and 
offer  presumption  instead  of  proof.  And  such  a 
procedure,  though  due  to  the  influence  of  scientific 
prepossession  over  certain  minds,  is  radically  un- 
scientific and  must  not  be  allowed  to  plead  the 
authority  of  science  in  its  behalf. 

'  Surely  the  universal  conviction  of  all  mankind, 
not  merely  felt  but  practically  adopted  in  every 
action  of  the  whole  life  of  every  individual,  even  by 
the  philosophers  who  deny  its  existence,  must  be 
allowed  to  count  for  a  great  deal  in  a  controversy 
of  opposing  probabilities^  for  it  must  be  clearly 
understood  that  the  argument  extends  to  nothing 


Z9a  APPENDIX 

more  XhdSi  probability.  The  opponents  of  freedom  of 
the  will  do  not  pretend  to  prove  by  the  evidence 
of  facts  that  this  freedom  does  not  exist,  but  only 
that  it  is  highly  improbable,  because  it  is,  as  they 
contend,  inconsistent  with  some  other  accepted 
theories.'     (Cox,  Mechanism  of  Man^  i.  p.  399.} 

Then,  after  all  that  has  been  said  upon  the 
question,  there  is  still  a  great  deal  of  misconception 
as  to  what  is  meant  by  freewill.  Every  one  knows 
that  it  neither  means  a  motiveless  nor  a  limitless 
will;  and  yet  on  both  points  there  is  still  a  great 
deal  of  confusion. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  not  motiveless,  and  to 
make  this  clear,  the  word  self-determination  is  now 
used.  But  this  term,  in  its  turn,  has  given  rise 
to  misunderstanding,  in  consequence  of  its  being 
appropriated  by  necessitarians,  and  utterly  distorted 
from  its  original  sense.  It  is  universally  agreed 
that  human  conduct  is  determined  by  motives: 
and  the  only  question  is  whence  those  motives  are 
derived.  Self-determination  means  the  power  of 
choosing  the  motive  by  which  our  action  shall  be 
determined,  and  thus  in  the  last  resort,  of  determin- 
ing our  conduct  of  our  own  accord,  or  as  the  phrase 
says,  determining  ourselves.  Its  possibility  depends 
upon  our  being  self-conscious.  For  because  we  are 
self-conscious,  we  can  distinguish  our  '  self  not  only 
from  the  external  world,  but  from  all  the  various 


//.      FREEWILL  I9« 

thoughts  which  come  into  our  minds.  We  can  hold 
them  at  arm's  length,  as  it  were,  and  contemplate 
them  as  objects  which,  though  present  to  our 
imagination,  are  distinct  from  our  self.  Now 
among  these  thoughts  which  come  into  the  mind 
are  a  certain  number  which  arouse  our  desires,  and 
therefore  appeal  to  us  as  motives ;  urging  us  to  act 
or  to  forbear.  But  we  can  treat  these  precisely 
like  all  other  thoughts ;  we  can  stand  free  from 
them  ;  we  can  contemplate  them  ab  extra.  And 
then  we  can  choose  from  among  them  which  we 
will  elect  to  follow.  And  it  is  at  this  point  that 
we  are  aware  of  being  free.  At  the  moment 
of  action  we  undoubtedly  follow  what  is  then 
the  strongest  motive — but  it  does  not  become  the 
strongest  till  we  have  made  it  so  by  our  previous 
act  of  choice :  and  that  act  of  choice  is  an  act  of 
pure  self-assertion.  /  will  make  this  my  motive. 
/  will  identify  myself  with  this.  Self-determination 
therefore  is  simply  a  more  accurately  descriptive 
name  for  what  is  commonly  called  freewill :  and  its 
accent,  so  to  speak,  is  upon  the  '  self.'  But  various 
necessitarians  have  caught  it  up  and  changed  its 
accent  on  to  the  '  determination.'  Self-determina- 
tion, they  say,  means  the  fact  of  being  determined 
by  self,  used  as  a  synonym  for  character ;  and  is 
thus  only  a  particular  form  of  determinism  ;  human 
conduct  being  as  necessarily  determined  by  character 
as  material  motion  by  external  force.     Now  this  is 

O 


«94  APPENDIX 

exactly  what  the  phrase  in  question  does  not  mean, 
and  was  never  meant  to  mean  by  those  who  intro- 
duced its  use. 

Self  as  synonymous  with  person,  or  self-conscious 
subject,  as  such,  is  quite  distinct  from  self  as  synony- 
mous with  character,  or  developed  personality,  as 
we  have  had  occasion  to  point  out  in  the  previous 
note ;  and  it  is  in  the  former  sense,  and  not  the 
latter,  that  the  word  is  used  in  the  phrase  self- 
determination.  It  denotes  the  power  that  we 
possess,  as  self-conscious  beings,  of  selecting  our 
own  motives,  and  so  determining  our  conduct,  and 
through  our  conduct  our  character.  Of  course  we 
have  the  rudiments  of  a  character,  in  the  shape  of 
disposition  and  temperament,  to  start  with  ;  and  as 
this  character  grows,  its  influence  on  our  conduct 
increases.  But  so  far  is  this  influence  from  being 
equivalent  to  self-determination  in  the  proper  sense 
of  the  term,  that  we  may  say  with  strict  accuracy 
that,  in  proportion  as  our  character  determines  us, 
we  are  not  self-determined ;  we  do  not  act  as 
selves,  consciously  using  our  power  of  choice.  It 
is  quite  true,  and  a  very  important  truth,  that  our 
character,  as  time  goes  on,  becomes  the  summary 
and  register  of  all  our  previous  acts  of  choice  ;  and 
thus  expresses  our  dominant  bent,  and  continues  to 
act  automatically,  in  all  the  ordinary  circumstances 
of  life — ^just  as  we  write  or  play  music  without 
thinking  of  the  letters  or  the  notes.     But  though 


//.       FREEWILL  195 

this  action  is  practically  automatic,  we  are  conscious 
of  being  able,  by  a  sufficient  effort,  to  counteract  it ; 
and  it  is  only  because  we  adopt  it  by  acquiescence, 
that  is  by  a  fresh  act  of  mental  self-determination, 
that  we  regard  it  and  expect  it  to  be  regarded  as 
truly  our  own. 

Self-determination  then  is  only  another  name  for 
freewill.  But  it  is  a  more  accurate  name,  for  it 
implies  the  necessity  of  motives,  as  against  mere 
indeterminism,  or  liberty  of  indifference ;  while  it 
reminds  us  that  those  motives  are  not  mere  desires, 
but  objects  of  thought  to  a  self-conscious  subject ; 
who,  as  such,  can  distinguish  himself  from  them, 
and  freely  decide  or  decline  to  make  them  his  own. 

The  whole  process  is  well  described,  in  some- 
what different  phraseology,  by  Professor  Case,  and 
the  difference  of  phrase  may  further  emphasize  the 
point: — 

*  Old-fashioned  as  it  may  now  appear,  the  moral 
commonplace  which  tells  us  to  govern  our  passions 
by  our  reason,  is  the  real  solution  of  the  freedom  of 
the  will ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  every- 
body remembers  this  power  of  the  intellect  when 
speaking  of  virtue,  and  yet  most  moralists  forget  it 
when  they  are  discussing  the  will.  The  real  ques- 
tion is,  whether  the  will  is  independent  of  the 
strongest  desire,  and  whether  it  can  choose  to  follow 
it  or  not.  The  answer  is,  that  the  will  is  free  from 
O  2 


Z96  APPENDIX 

desire  by  determining  to  do  what  the  intellect  after 
deliberation  declares  to  be  good,  and  that  it  can 
without  reference  to  the  strength  of  the  desire 
choose  to  follow  it  or  not, — to  follow  it,  if  the  intellect 
declares  the  object  to  be  good,  to  reject  it,  if  the 
intellect  declares  the  object  to  be  evil.  .  .  .  The 
will  is  neither  the  child  of  desire,  nor  unbegotten, 
but  is  the  child  of  the  intellect.  Though  it  be  true 
that  intellect  by  itself  does  not  cause  action,  yet 
a  conception  of  good  in  the  intellect  does  cause  a 
volition  of  good  in  the  will,  and  is  thus  through 
the  medium  of  the  will  an  ultimate  cause  of  action. 
We  control  our  desires  by  our  will,  and  our  will 
by  our  intellect,  or  by  what  Butler  called  "a  capacity 
of  reflecting  upon  actions  and  characters,  and  making 
them  an  object  to  our  thought."  Will  then  may  be 
defined  as  the  determination  to  do  what  the  intellect 
concludes  to  be  good  after  deliberation.  .  .  .  Even 
if  I  have  not  enumerated  all  the  constituents  of 
a  free  will,  I  have  at  least  disproved  the  Necessarian 
theory,  that  a  man  always  acts  from  his  "desires, 
aversions,  habits,  and  dispositions,  combined  with 
outward  circumstances,"  by  proving  that  he  some- 
times deliberates  about  the  objects  of  all  these 
motives,  and  determines  to  follow  them  only  so 
far  as  he  judges  them  to  be  good.  The  mere 
existence  of  the  deliberative  intellect  is  sufficient 
to  disprove  Necessarianism.'  (Case,  Realism  in 
Morals^  pp.  i6, 19,  24.) 


//.      FREEWILL  197 

It  may  be  interesting  to  compare  this  with  the 
concise  language  in  which  St.  Thomas  expressed 
the  same  doctrine  six  centuries  ago : — 

'  Intellectus  movet  voluntatem  finaliter,  quia  bonum 
intellectum  est  objectum  movens  voluntatem  ut 
finis.'     {Sum.  i.  82.  4.) 

So  far  then  on  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  self- 
determination.  The  evidence  for  the  fact  of  it — 
the  fact  that  we  are  free  to  choose  between  opposing 
motives — I  have  attempted  briefly  to  summarize  in 
my  lectures  on  Personality,  with  further  reference 
in  the  notes  to  more  authoritative  writers,  who  have 
treated  the  subject  at  greater  length.  Briefly  the 
evidence  consists  in  our  consciousness  at  the  moment, 
confirmed  by  our  subsequent  approval  or  disapproval 
of  the  choice.  This  verdict  of  consciousness  can 
only  be  set  aside  by  the  arbitrary  assertion  that  it  is 
(and  has  been  from  the  dawn  of  history)  an  illusion 
or  delusion  (both  terms  are  used) ;  and  to  support 
this  assertion,  two  further  assertions,  of  an  equally 
arbitrary  nature,  are  generally  made. 

I.  That  we  think  we  could  have  chosen  differently 
in  the  past,  because  on  looking  back  at  a  later  date, 
and  with  an  altered  character,  we  feel  that  this 
altered  character  would  have  made  a  different 
choice.  And  on  this  two  remarks  may  suffice. 
Firstly,  on  the  necessitarian  hypothesis  that  one 
choice  inevitably  leads  to  the  next,  the  character 


198  APPENDIX 

could  by  no  conceivable  possibility  be  so  altered 
as  to  condemn  any  of  its  previous  decisions,  since 
it  would  still  be  moving  on  the  lines  which  they 
involved.  Secondly,  it  is  not  in  retrospect,  but  at 
the  moment  of  choosing  that  we  are  most  keenly 
conscious  of  our  freedom  to  choose — as  when  every 
fibre  of  our  moral  being  is  strained  almost  to  break- 
ing in  the  agonizing  effort  of  the  choice.  The 
subsequent  review  of  a  wrong  act  is,  indeed,  very 
far  from  assuring  us  that  we  should  have  courage  to 
act  differently  now,  as  in  the  case  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  Hannah  Irwin,  quoted  by  Schopenhauer 
in  his  favour:  what  it  does  assure  us  is  that  we 
ought  to  have  acted  differently  then ;  and  that  is 
precisely  what  we  remember  feelmg  at  the  time,  and 
what  convinced  us  theii,  that  we  were  free. 

2.  The  other  assertion  is  that,  as  a  body  which 
is  moved  by  forces  would,  if  endowed  with  con- 
sciousness^ think  that  it  moved  of  itself,  because  it 
followed  the  strongest  force,  that  is,  the  force  which 
appealed  to  it  most ;  so  human  beings  imagine 
themselves  free  simply  because  they  are  conscious, 
and  therefore  aware  of  acquiescing  in  the  motive 
that  determines  them,  or  wishing  what  they  do. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  our  consciousness  of  free- 
dom does  not  consist  in  the  mere  sense  of  wishing 
what  we  do,  but  in  the  contemporaneous  sense  that 
we  could  wish  or  will  otherwise  if  we  chose.  We 
know  very  well  what  it  is  to  be  conscious  spectators 


//.      FREEWILL  199 

of  our  own  automatic  activities,  for  it  is  a  familiar 
experience  of  everyday  life  ;  but  we  know,  at  the 
same  time,  that  this  kind  of  consciousness  differs, 
toto  caeloy  from  our  attitude  toward  acts  of  will. 
Yet  the  statement  in  question  asserts  the  two  things 
to  be  identical.  It  would  really  seem  therefore  to 
be  due  to  confusion — a  rather  serious  confusion — 
between  physical  and  moral  freedom,  the  freedom 
of  unimpeded,  and  that  of  voluntary  action.  A  stone 
discharged  from  a  catapult,  if  it  suddenly  became 
conscious,  would  doubtless  feel  its  movement  free, 
in  the  sense  of  unimpeded ;  but  what  it  emphati- 
cally would  not  feel  would  be  power  to  change  its 
direction  at  will.  Yet  this  latter  is  what  we  mean 
by  moral  freedom ;  and  the  hypothetical  analogy 
in  question,  therefore,  does  not  touch  it,  for  it  only 
applies  to  physical  or  unimpeded,  not  to  moral  or 
voluntary  freedom.  Hence  the  supposed  delusion 
of  the  latter  remains  precisely  where  it  was  before ; 
except  that  one  more  attempt  to  explain  it  con- 
spicuously fails. 

The  same  is  the  case  with  all  attempts  to  explain 
the  sense  of  freedom  as  illusory.  They  are  hypo- 
theses, and  from  the  nature  of  the  case  unverifiable 
hypotheses,  invented  to  justify  a  foregone  conclu- 
sion. Freedom  must  be  an  illusion  because  it  ought 
to  be  an  illusion,  is  the  sum  total  of  the  necessitarian 
position,  when  stripped  of  all  disguise.  And  it 
ought  to  be  an  illusion,  because  otherwise  it  would 


900  APPENDIX 

conflict  with  the  reign  of  law ;  or  more  specifically, 
with  the  doctrine  of  the  persistence  of  energy ;  in 
accordance  with  which  we  are  assured,  *  a  physical 
movement  does  not  change  its  direction  except 
under  the  influence  of  a  physical  force,'  and  there 
is  consequently  no  room  for  freewill  to  intervene. 

An  illustration  will  perhaps  better  enable  us  to 
appreciate  the  case.  A  financier  receives  his  letters, 
and,  after  turning  their  contents  over  in  his  mind, 
telegraphs  his  business  instructions  to  various  quar- 
ters of  the  world.  Or,  a  woman  is  seated  at  the 
piano,  and  a  friend  asks  her  to  play.  She  thinks 
over  his  favourite  melodies,  or  considers  his  present 
state  of  mind,  and  chooses  a  particular  sonata  of 
Beethoven  as  the  result.  Or,  again,  news  is  brought 
to  a  general  of  an  enemy's  movement ;  he  plans 
how  to  meet  it,  and  selects  a  special  regiment  for 
the  work.  Now,  in  each  of  these  cases,  we  have 
physical  antecedents,  followed  by  physical  conse- 
quences. But  at  a  point  between  the  two  the 
human  will  has  intervened,  and  determined  the 
entire  character  of  the  consequences.  Other  instruc- 
tions might  have  been  given,  other  music  played, 
other  men  sent  to  risk  their  lives,  and  endless 
differences  resulted  in  the  subsequent  condition  of 
the  external  world.  Human  deliberation  has  en- 
tered as  a  modifying  factor  into  a  series  of  other- 
wise physical  events,  and  determined  their  direction 
by  a  conscious  act  of  will.     The  physical  move- 


//.       FREEIVILL  aoi 

ments  do  not  simply  pass  into  the  darkness  of  the 
brain,  and  thence  after  a  while  reissue  in  a  definite 
direction :  they  report  themselves  in  the  full  light 
of  consciousness,  and  are  discussed  and  debated  in 
that  light ;  and  it  is  exclusively  in  consequence  of 
what  takes  place  within  the  sphere  of  consciousness 
that  they  reissue  as  they  do.  We  have  therefore 
the  clearest,  the  most  immediate,  the  most  intimate 
evidence  possible,  that  our  will  does,  as  a  fact,  direct 
physical  energy. 

When,  with  this  in  mind,  we  turn  to  the  state- 
ment that '  physical  movements  do  not  change  their 
direction  except  under  the  influence  of  a  physical 
force,'  we  see  more  clearly  to  what  it  amounts.  It 
seems  as  if  it  were  merely  an  *  universal  affirmative ' 
in  physics;  but,  when  used  against  freewill,  it  is 
illegitimately  extended  into  an  '  universal  negative ' 
in  metaphysics  ;  and  '  universal  negatives,'  as  we 
know,  are  dangerous  to  deal  with,  even  in  an  appro- 
priate sphere.  The  utmost  that  the  physicist  can 
possibly  assert  is  that  within  the  physical  region, 
which  is  equivalent  to  saying  in  the  physical  region 
viewed  from  the  physical  side,  the  law  in  question 
holds  good.  But  if  there  is  a  power  outside  the 
physical  region,  and  therefore  wholly  inappreciable 
by  physical  instruments  or  methods  of  inquiry,  it 
is  obvious  that  the  physicist  as  such  knows  neither 
what  it  can  or  cannot  do.  And  that  there  is  such 
a  power,  the  universal  experience  of  mankind,  con- 


aoa  APPENDIX 

firmed  by  the  verdict  of  critical  philosophy,  asserts 
with  an  emphasis  on  which,  by  this  time,  it  is  wholly 
superfluous  to  enlarge.  As  Dr.  Johnson  said,  *  we 
know  that  we  are  free,  and  there's  an  end  of  it.' 

We  have  here,  therefore,  a  metaphysical  fact  of 
simply  incalculable  weight,  the  universal  testimony 
of  human  consciousness,  to  what  goes  on  within 
itself,  as  against  a  physical  hypothesis,  which  by 
its  nature  can  never  be  universally  verified,  and 
least  of  all  in  the  very  region  where  its  verification 
would  be  to  the  point — that  is,  the  living  human 
brain.  At  the  present  moment,  for  instance,  we 
are  assured  that,  *  The  relation  between  nerve-fibres 
and  nerve-cells  is  very  obscure ;  the  physical  pro- 
perties of  the  ganglia-cells,  and  consequently  the 
physical  origin  of  the  simplest  reflex  movement, 
are  not  yet  understood  ;  it  is  not  even  quite  certain 
that  the  ganglia-cells  form  the  connecting-link  be- 
tween the  afferent  and  efferent  nerve-fibres.  Nor 
has  it  been  possible  to  point  out  the  anatomical 
connexion  between  the  centres  of  the  centripetal 
and  those  of  the  centrifugal  nerves  in  the  spinal 
cord.'     (HOFFDING.) 

But  let  us  suppose  that  all  these  obscurities  have 
been  cleared  up  by  the  science  of  the  future,  and 
that  the  whole  mechanism  of  nervous  action  can  be 
traced.  The  verification  in  question  would  still 
be  no  nearer  than  before.  For  even  if  we  could  see 
the  continuous  action  of  a  living  human  brain  (a 


//.      FREEIVILL  903 

considerable  concession  to  the  science  of  the  future), 
we  could  not  tell  whether  its  accompanying  con- 
sciousness was,  or  was  not,  a  condition  of  what  we 
saw.  For,  as  Tyndall  characteristically  put  it,  we 
have  not  the  necessary  organ,  nor  the  rudiments  of 
such  an  organ.  There  might  be  no  visible  breach 
of  continuity,  and  yet  the  whole  process  might  be 
spiritually  qualified ;  much  as  a  living  organism 
qualifies  the  mechanical  properties  of  its  constituent 
molecules. 

It  is  of  course  obvious  to  reply  that  we  cannot 
logically  draw  a  distinction  between  the  character 
of  movements  which  are  equally  physical  whether 
inside  or  outside  the  brain.  If  physical  antecedents, 
without  any  spiritual  coefficient,  invariably  deter- 
mine the  latter,  what  right  have  we  to  suppose  that 
the  former  are  in  different  case  ?  When  this  objec- 
tion is  made  by  a  pure  materialist  we  can  only  refer 
him  back  to  those  ultimate  considerations  before 
which  we  believe  that  materialism  breaks  down. 
But  if  it  is  urged,  as  is  often  the  case,  by  those  who 
admit  the  existence  of  spirit  in  the  universe ;  we 
reply  that  in  that  case  all  physical  movement  must 
be  conceived  to  have  a  spiritual  coefficient,  as  we 
have  argued  at  length  in  the  text.  But  if  all 
physical  movement  has  a  divine  spiritual  co- 
efficient, or  condition,  which  is  only  unobserved 
because  its  normal  action  is  uniform,  there  is 
nothing  illogical,  or  even  improbable,  in  supposing 


204  APPENDIX 

that  the  movements  of  the  brain  are  specially  con- 
ditioned or  controlled  by  the  spirit  of  man.  More- 
over it  must  be  remembered  that,  after  all,  human 
personality  is,  within  our  experience,  unique :  to 
argue  therefore  that  what  does  not  happen  else- 
where is  not  likely  to  happen  in  the  human  brain 
is  by  no  means  so  logical  a  proceeding  as  at  first 
sight  it  may  seem.  For  granting  that  the  human 
brain  when  considered  by  itself  is  like  any  other 
*  parcel  of  matter ' ;  yet  in  actual  fact  it  only 
exists  in  combination  with  a  unique  phenomenon, 
a  phenomenon  which  has  no  parallel  within  the 
range  of  our  experience  ;  and  it  is  a  mere  common- 
place to  say  that  we  cannot  infer  from  what  happens 
under  one  set  of  conditions,  what  will  happen  under 
another  set  of  conditions,  which  are  not  only 
different,  but  as  different  as  we  can  possibly  con- 
ceive. Thus  it  still  remains  a  case  of  metaphysical 
fact  versus  physical  presumption;  and  the  more 
the  presumption  is  analyzed  the  less  reasonable  is 
it  found  to  be. 

We  may  fitly  conclude  this  aspect  of  the  subject 
with  the  following  quotation  from  Lotze,  whose 
whole  treatment  of  the  question  should  be  read : — 

'Admitting  the  incomparability  of  things  physical 
and  material,  it  would  still  be  an  unfounded  pre- 
judice to  suppose  that  only  like  can  act  on  like,  and 
a  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  case  of  an  interaction 


//.      FREEWILL  aos 

of  soul  and  body  is  an  exceptional  one,  and  that  we 
are  here  to  find  inexplicable  what  in  any  action  of 
matter  upon  matter  we  understand.  ...  To  our 
sensuous  imagination,  it  is  true,  no  interaction  but 
that  of  similar  elements  (similar  at  least  in  their 
external  appearance)  presents  itself  as  a  connected 
image ;  but  it  is  only  our  sensuous  imagination  that 
seeks  to  retain  for  every  case  of  action  the  homo- 
geneous character  which  it  fancies  it  understands 
to  be  an  essential  condition  in  this  particular  case, 
and  this  is  just  where  it  deceives  itself.  .  .  .  The 
working  of  every  machine  yet  known  rests  on  the 
fact  that  certain  parts  of  it  are  solid,  and  that  these 
parts  communicate  their  motions ;  but  how  the 
elements  manage  to  bind  one  another  into  an  un- 
changing shape,  and  how  they  can  transmit  motions 
— and  this  is  what  is  essential  in  the  process  of  the 
action  of  matter  on  matter — remains  invisible,  and 
the  similarity  of  the  parts  concerned  in  the  action 
adds  nothing  to  its  intelligibility.  When  then  we 
speak  of  an  action  taking  place  between  the  soul 
and  material  elements,  all  that  we  miss  is  the  per- 
ception of  that  external  scenery  which  may  make 
the  influence  of  matter  on  matter  more  familiar  to 
us,  but  cannot  explain  it.  We  shall  never  see  the 
last  atom  of  the  nerve  impinging  on  the  soul,  or 
the  soul  upon  it ;  but  equally  in  the  case  of  two 
visible  spheres  the  impact  is  not  the  intelligible 
cause  of  the  communication  of  motion ;  it  is  nothing 


ao6  APPENDIX 

but  the  form  in  which  we  can  perceive  something 
happening  which  we  do  not  comprehend.  The 
mistake  is  to  desire  to  discover  indispensable 
conditions  of  all  action;  and  we  are  only  repeat- 
ing this  mistake  in  another  form  when  we  declare 
the  immaterial  soul,  as  devoid  of  mass,  incapable  of 
acting  mechanically  on  a  dense  material  mass,  or 
conceive  it  as  an  invulnerable  shadow,  inaccessible 
to  the  attacks  of  the  corporeal  world.'  (LOTZE, 
Metaphysic^  bk.  iii.  c.  t,  p.  436). 

But  while  it  is  essential  to  emphasize  the  exis- 
tence of  freewill,  it  is  almost  as  important  to 
recognize  its  practical  limitation.  For  a  great 
deal  of  the  obscurity  that  surrounds  the  entire 
subject  is  due  to  the  confusion  of  these  two  things ; 
the  extremely  limited  nature  of  our  freedom  giving 
superficial  plausibility  to  the  denial  of  its  existence. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  power  to  deviate  by  a  hair's 
breadth  from  the  chain  of  physical  necessity  con- 
stitutes freedom,  as  described  above,  and  renders  us 
in  consequence  responsible  moral  agents.  And  this 
may  be  called  formal,  as  distinct  from  material  or 
practical  freedom ;  meaning  that  it  is  a  form  which 
has  to  impress  itself  on  matter;  a  potentiality 
(5i;ra/iiis)  which  has  to  be  realized,  a  faculty  which 
has  to  be  used,  before  we  can  be  called  actually 
and  positively  free.  We  are  in  fact  free  to  become 
free :  free  in  the  first  sense  to  become  free  in  the 


//.       FREEWILL  ao7 

second  sense.  And  this  process  of  becoming 
positively  free,  or  realizing  our  potential  freedom, 
is  limited  in  various  ways. 

I.  We  are  physically  limited  by  the  fact  that  we 
cannot  create,  but  can  only  direct  physical  energy. 
This  distinction  (which  Hoffding  calls  a  subterfuge) 
is  in  fact  a  very  real  and  important  one,  for  it  con- 
stitutes the  answer  to  the  charge  that  freewill 
would  introduce  confusion  into  the  order  of  the 
world.  Of  course  the  power  to  direct  is  as  disturb- 
ing as  the  power  to  create  energy  at  will,  in  the  eyes 
of  any  psychologist  who  ever  hopes  to  construct  an 
exact  science  of  the  human  mind ;  but  this  hypo- 
thetical science  is  the  only  thing  that  it  disturbs. 
But  otherwise,  the  fact  that  we  can  only  direct 
existing  energies  effectively  prevents  our  disturbing 
the  order  of  the  world  ;  being  only  the  counter- 
part to  Bacon's  Natiira  non  nisi  parendo  vincitur. 
The  world  is  full  of  forces  that  every  moment  are 
changing  their  direction,  and  human  action  is 
confessedly  one  of  the  factors  in  this  change.  But 
the  fact  that  the  action,  when  regarded  from  within, 
is  free,  does  not  alter  the  fact  that,  when  regarded 
from  without,  it  is  like  any  other  physical  antecedent, 
which  modifies,  but  in  no  way  confuses  the  natural 
sequence  of  events.  While  we  are  deliberating  we 
are  free,  but  do  not  alter  the  material  order ;  but 
as  soon  as  we  begin  to  act  we  enter  into  that  order, 
and  thereby  become  a  part  of  it,  and  obedient  to  its 


ao8  APPENDIX 

laws.  Thus  freewill  is  prevented  by  its  obvious 
physical  limitations  from  disturbing  the  order  of 
the  world,  and  what  may  be  called  its  truly  creative 
force  is  thereby  limited  to  the  sphere  of  the  moral 
character. 

2.  But  here  again  it  is  constitutionally  limited, 
for  it  cannot  create  ex  nihilo  ;  it  can  only  fashion 
those  rudiments  of  character  which  we  already 
possess,  in  the  shape  of  temperament  and  dispo- 
sition, talents,  tendencies,  and  taints.  We  are  free 
enough  to  bring  a  moral  or  an  immoral  result  out 
of  these  elements ;  but  the  elements  themselves, 
assisted  by  the  opportunities  and  circumstances  of 
life,  will  determine  the  particular  shape  of  that 
result,  and  the  consequent  individuality  of  the 
person.  Thus  we  are  constitutionally  free  to  be- 
come good  or  evil,  but  not  to  make  one  hair  black 
or  white.  We  can  only  realize  the  individuality 
with  which  we  were  born. 

3.  But,  once  more,  we  are  morally  limited ;  for 
this  very  process  of  realization  becomes  a  further 
process  of  limitation  in  its  turn.  *  Acts  form  habits,' 
said  Aristotle  long  ago,  '  because,'  adds  the  modern 
physiologist,  *  nervous  energy  flows  along  the  line 
of  least  resistance,'  and  habits  are,  of  course,  limita- 
tions; for  the  stronger  a  habit  becomes,  the  less 
able  or  likely  are  we  to  counteract  it.  Habits, 
therefore,  grow  upon  us,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent, 
and  '  custom  lies  upon  us  with  a  weight '  as  life 


//.      FREEWILL  Mp 

goes  on ;  and  so  by  degrees  our  character,  or 
habitual  mode  of  action,  is  permanently  formed. 
This  character,  as  we  have  seen  above,  may  still 
be  altered  with  sufficient  effort ;  but  as  the  effort 
becomes  more  difficult,  it  becomes  proportionately 
improbable,  till,  in  average  cases,  the  necessitarian 
contention  is  practically  true,  that  a  man's  conduct 
may  be  predicted  from  his  character,  or  is,  in  other 
words,  determined  by  his  past. 

Thus  our  freewill  is  practically  limited  in  a 
variety  of  ways ;  and  it  is  under  cover  of  these 
limitations,  as  noticed  above,  that  its  existence  can 
be  so  plausibly  denied.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
neither  the  physical  nor  the  constitutional  limits 
above  mentioned,  affect  its  essence  ;  they  merely 
circumscribe  its  range.  It  is  only  the  moral  limita- 
tion that  really  affects  it,  and  that  is  its  own  crea- 
tion, for  the  habits  that  at  last  enslave  it  were  at 
first  the  objects  of  its  choice  ;  and  thus,  however 
much  a  man's  character  determines  him,  he  is 
always  and  rightly  held  responsible  for  the  result. 

And  this  leads  us  to  a  further  point  of  view. 
The  freewill  or  power  of  self-determination  which 
we  have  hitherto  considered,  is,  as  above  stated, 
a  potentiality  to  be  realized,  a  faculty  to  be  used, 
and  its  realization  is  freedom,  or  the  state  of  being 
free.  But  the  faculty  of  freewill  is  limited  on 
every  side.  How  then  can  it  attain  to  a  state  of 
freedom  ?     Only  by  making  the  forces,  which  limit 

P 


-aio  APPENDIX 

it,  its  own  ;  so  that  they  cease  to  be  limitations,  and 
become  extensions  of  itself.  Thus  a  man  may- 
assert  his  formal  freewill,  by  refusing  to  be  con- 
trolled, and  crossing  a  railroad  in  front  of  a  train. 
He  defies  his  limitations,  and  immediately  loses  all 
freedom  in  death.  While  conversely  by  consenting 
to  be  confined  within  the  train,  he  extends  his 
powers  of  locomotion  to  a  distance,  which  they 
could  never  otherwise  attain,  and  to  that  degree 
enlarges  his  freedom.  By  accepting  his  physical 
limitation,  he  enlists  its  energy  on  his  own  behalf, 
and  changes  it  from  a  master  into  a  slave.  So 
a  criminal  asserts  his  formal  freewill  to  contravene 
the  law  of  the  land,  and  loses  his  liberty  in  prison ; 
while  the  man  who  obeys  the  law  of  the  land,  reaps 
all  the  fruit  of  its  protection,  and  thereby  obtains 
a  far  greater  freedom  than  if  the  law  did  not  exist. 
In  familiar  phrase,  we  are  not  free  from  the  law, 
but  by  the  law ;  for  to  obey  the  law  is  to  identify 
ourselves  with  its  action^  and  so  to  make  all  its 
power  our  own.  But  to  obey  law  is  to  surrender 
our  freewill  by  an  act  of  freewill.  Hence,  paradox- 
ical as  it  may  sound,  freewill  (our  initial,  '  formal,' 
potential  freewill)  exists  in  order  to  be  surrendered, 
and  only  by  its  surrender  do  we  become  practically 
free.  At  the  same  time  it  is  the  power  to  make 
this  surrender  that  constitutes  our  freedom  ;  it  is 
only  because  we  can  choose  the  law  that  we  can 
become  its  agents  and  not  its  slaves  :  and  so  though 


//.      FREEWILL  an 

our  formal  freedom  is  consumed  in  the  using,  it  is 
the  necessary  condition  of  our  being  ultimately 
free.  Hence  the  habits  which  gradually  stereotype 
our  repeated  acts  of  choice,  while  they  limit  our 
freewill,  increase  our  freedom,  in  proportion  as 
our  acts  of  choice  are  right.  For  every  region  of  life 
has  its  appropriate  laws ;  and  if  we  disobey  them, 
and  by  so  doing  form  habits  of  disobedience,  they 
oppress  us  with  increasing  severity  till  all  our 
liberty  is  gone ;  while  if  we  learn  habitually  to  obey 
them,  they  extend  our  power.  Healthy  habits 
give  us  bodily  capacity,  business  habits  wealth, 
studious  habits  learning,  moral  habits  virtue, 
spiritual  habits  piety ;  and  in  no  case  till  we  have 
acquired  the  habits  are  we  really  free.  Thus  the 
larger  the  number  of  rightly  chosen  habits  that  we 
have  acquired,  or  the  larger  the  number  of  laws 
that  we  have  learned  to  obey,  the  more  positively 
free  do  we  become ;  since  every  fresh  law  that  we 
make  our  own  becomes  a  fresh  instrument  for  our 
use ;  we  grow  increasingly  at  home  in  the  world, 
and  its  forces  are  increasingly  at  our  command. 
While  the  very  fact  that  our  growth  in  freedom 
means  growth  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  the 
universe,  effectually  prevents  our  freewill  from  being 
an  element  of  confusion  in  the  system  of  things,  as 
some  writers  and  thinkers  have  supposed  that  it 
needs  must  be. 

This  leads  us  to  a  further  and   final  thought. 


31  a  APPENDIX 

The  laws  of  nature  are,  for  theists,  synonymous  with 
the  will  of  God.  Hence  in  learning  to  obey  those 
laws,  we  are  uniting  our  will  to  that  of  God  ;  and 
His  power  becomes  our  power  ;  '  Whose  service,'  in 
consequence,  *  is  perfect  freedom.' 

'Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how, 
Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  Thine'.' 

Or,  as  Tennyson  otherwise  expressed  it  in  prose, 
'  Man's  Freewill  is  but  a  bird  in  a  cage  ;  he  can  stop 
at  the  lower  perch,  or  he  .can  mount  to  a  higher. 
Then  that  which  is  and  knows  will  enlarge  his  cage, 
give  him  a  higher  and  a  higher  perch,  and  at  last 
break  off  the  top  of  his  cage,  and  let  him  out  to  be 
one  with  the  Freewill  of  the  Universe.*     (LiFE,  i. 

318) 

*  Primum  liberum  arbitrium,  quod  homini  datum 
est  .  .  .  potuit  non  peccare,  sed  potuit  et  peccare  : 
hoc  autem  novissimum  eo  potentius  erit,  quo  pec- 
care non  poterit.  Verum  hoc  quoque  Dei  munere, 
non  suae  possibilitate  naturae.  Aliud  est  enim, 
esse  Deum  ;  aliud  participem  Dei.  Deus  natura 
peccare  non  potest ;  particeps  vero  Dei  ab  illo  acci- 
pit,  ut  peccare  non  possit  .  .  .  ita  primum  liberum 
arbitrium  posse  non  peccare,  novissimum  non  posse 
peccare.'     (Aug.  De  Civ.  Dei^  xxii.  37.) 

'  In  Memoriam.     Introd. 


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